Category: BRANDING

Ep 112: The Miracle Morning with Hal Elrod

RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:04) My day is just better. When I look on my calendar and I see an appointment with Hal Elrod I have grown to love this man. Truly love him. And it’s like, John O’Leary, you heard me, I’ve interviewed John O’Leary before. These are two of like people that most inspire me in a profound way personally, in terms of what they’ve overcome in their life, the attitude of which they’ve overcome it. And what, how has been able to build in terms of a community is just inspiring. And it makes a difference in the world. Like he is someone who is a mission driven messenger. He’s a classic example of what we’re trying to help people become in his book. The miracle morning is what we actually uphold in our bestseller launch plan event, as sort of like the ultimate pinnacle of a, of a self published work. RV: (01:55) It has now sold over 2 million copies. There are multiple derivatives of the book for, you know, different groups. He released another book called the miracle equation, not too long ago and how, and I saw each other again, and we shared the stage at an event, one of the best speaking events in the world advisors Excel in early 2020, it was like one of the last human events in person events. And I got to see him speak which was such a treat. So anyways, how brother welcome to the show. Good to see you, Rory brother. It is, it is a pleasure man. And I’m I’m excited to to dive into that. So I want you to tell the story. We want to hear the story of the miracle morning community, which is amazing 270,000 people in this Facebook group. And I want to hear how you built a quarter million people in a Facebook group and sold 2 million copies of a self published book. But for people who don’t know you, can you just tell us like a little bit of your personal story of like, what happened and, and, you know, you survive this near death experience and then how that kind of led to you starting your, you know, as an, HE: (03:12) On a personal brand. Yeah. Yeah. I think we all have wake up calls at different times in our, in our lives. And they usually come from adversity, right? Some sort of adversity challenge tragedy. When I was 20 years old, I was driving home from a Cutco sales meeting. I sold Cutco cutlery and I gave a speech that night at this conference and driving home that night in a brand new Ford Mustang. My first new car, I was hit head on by a drunk driver at 70 miles an hour. And my car spun off the drunk driver. The car behind me hit me at 70 miles an hour in my door. And I broke 11 bones on the left side of my body from the side impact. And that night I bled to death. It took the paramedics and the fire department and our to use the jaws of life and cut me out of the car. HE: (03:55) And so I was just bleeding with 11 broken bones in the car. And that night I was I died on the helicopter. I was clinically dead for approximately six minutes while I was taken to the hospital. You know, heart stopped beating, wasn’t breathing for six minutes and then six days in a coma. And I flat lined twice more. He came out of the coma to be told I would never walk again and that I had permanent brain damage. And I always joke that my wife will about for the brain damage, but I did learn to walk again. And you know, and, and went on to, and not really did launch me into like, even in the hospital. I’m like, I felt this sense of purpose. Like I’m meant to overcome this in the most positive, proactive way. I can, as an example for other people. HE: (04:39) And I didn’t know who those other people were. I didn’t know if those were just going to be my future kids or my circle of influence or my family or the world, but I did always want to be a, a keynote speaker, motivational speaker. I called it back then. And I remember I told my dad, I said, dad, you know, he, he was the doctors were wondering why I was so positive. And I said, look, I’ve always wanted to be motivational speaker, but I had kind of a normal life. I never had anything good to talk about this. Maybe this is why this is happening. So I have a story of overcoming that I can share with others and, you know, turned into be exactly that. And and then in 2008, when the economy crashed, I crashed. RV: (05:18) So you actually, so you died clinically died three separate times and, and that, that’s how this all started. HE: (05:26) Yeah. That’s where, yeah, that, that, that was where that adversity, that wake up call of like, Hey you know, it really taught me what I think right now is so important year. What year was this? Two a night, December 3rd, 1999. Okay. And yeah, so 99, so 20 little over 20 years, right, right. Over 20 years ago. And and just taught me that our, our outer world what’s going on in the world, what’s going on with other people what’s going on in our government, what’s going on in our job. What’s going on in the economy is not determining the determining factor of our inner world. You know? And, and I really that’s what I learned is that the, the, the world can be falling down outside of me. And I will choose to be at peace, happy and grateful, no matter what’s going on around me. HE: (06:12) And that for me, I applied three years ago with diagnosis of cancer, a very rare, aggressive form of cancer. I was given a 20 to 30% chance of surviving. And, you know, as a doubt, I mean, you know, when you’re, when you’re sitting there looking at your 11 or your seven year old daughter in the face and your four year old son and the doctor just told you that day, that you’re most likely going to die. It’s a hardest, that’s the hardest thing, you know, to deal with. And and I have, I had the same, the same decision. The day I was diagnosed with cancer. And given those grim odds, I called my wife. She was out of town and I had to tell her, and she in buttoned tears. And I said, sweetie, I promise you one thing, I can’t promise that I’ll beat this, but I promise, I believe I will give it everything I have, but I said, I will promise you, I will be the happiest and the most grateful and the strongest I’ve ever been while we endure the most difficult time in our lives together. HE: (07:02) And it was by far the most difficult time, but but I was, you know, there’s video of me, you know, in pain and, and no hair and then chemo. And, but just genuinely, like, I’m not letting my circumstances dictate my emotional wellbeing. And I think for all of us, we, we, we’ve been conditioned to think they’re mutually exclusive like, Oh, bad things happening in the world. And in my life, I feel bad, good things happen. I feel good. But, you know, I think that the most important thing that we can adopt is it doesn’t matter. What’s going on outside of me. I am always in control of what’s going on inside of me. And from that place, we can find joy, happiness, motivation to create the circumstances that we want in our lives. RV: (07:42) Gosh, brother, that is just so powerful and meaningful and needed, I mean, in the world. So, so how does, did the community start first or did the book start and like, did you try to traditionally publish and or did you just kind of go like, cause basically, so miracle morning was the first book, miracle equations, the new book, but miracle morning is this story. And then it’s also a morning routine and set of set of practices that you follow and help people to live this. Did you so, so talk to me about the book. Like when does the book come on? How does that come about? HE: (08:22) So miracle morning, it was, it was never a book idea. It was in 2008, when the United States economy crashed, I kind of crashed with it. And after like a six month downward spiral of losing over half of my clients losing my, you know, having to foreclose on my house getting my body fat percentage tripled, like I, I was, I was, I was in debt. I was depressed. I was kind of a mess and a series of events and some advice from a good buddy of mine. John Burgoff do you know John Bergoff? I don’t know John Bergoff and that’s all right, I’ll introduce you at some time. But I said, John gave me advice. He said, how you should go for a run every morning and listen to self-help. He said, put yourself in a peak state, physically, mentally, and emotionally, and listen to something that will enhance your mental and emotional wellbeing. HE: (09:07) And I’m like, Oh, okay. You know, like I need to make money even. And I don’t, I don’t say that’s gonna make me money, but, but it basically led me to realize that how I start my day was the single most determining factor in the state that I begin the day in and thus carried out the day in and thus created my results. And so, in other words, how you start your day sets the tone, the context and the direction for the rest of your life. And so I started practicing this and it changed my life very quickly. I went and told my wife, after two months of doing this, I said, this morning routine feels like a miracle. You know, we’ve doubled our income. We have all these amazing results. And she goes, it’s like your miracle morning. And I go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. And then that’s when I started teaching it to people, my clients, and in speeches and RV: (09:53) Quickly that the most successful male authors in the world are simply plagiarizing from their wives. Yeah. Yes. HE: (10:00) Our wives or our muses. Yeah, no, she, she, she came up with the title and even though, again, it wasn’t a different book title, but so I finally was like, I have a responsibility because it changed my life and it was changing all of my clients’ lives. And I went, none of us were morning people. So the, this, if this could change our lives, this could change anybody’s life. And I felt a sense of responsibility to write a book about it. And it took me three years. And during that time to answer your question on the traditional versus self publishing, I thought, okay, I really want to change millions of lives with this book. So therefore I have to traditionally publish to be taken seriously and for it to get any distribution. And then as I kept writing the book and doing my research, I went, Oh, that’s not true. HE: (10:42) Like the publisher doesn’t do much to market your book unless you have a household name and they know that it’s going to give them, you know, give them a nice ROI. I realized that if you traditionally published, you’re lucky just to get a deal and then you still have to do all the marketing. So I thought, I believe in this concept, I’m going to self publish. I self published the book on 12, 12, 2012, so 12, 12, 12. And it didn’t have a huge, you know, I didn’t have a big, I wasn’t an influencer. I wasn’t like Tim Ferriss. I didn’t have a blog. I, you know, I wasn’t well known. And it’s about a year and a half of, of promotion. The first year I did 150 podcast interviews. I did 50 of my own podcasts. I get 36 speeches. HE: (11:24) I was on 12 TV shows. Like I did everything I could. And I sold like 13,000 copies. It wasn’t anything fancy, but I was committed for as long as it took to get the message out. And it took six years, six years to reach a million, a million copies sold. And in that time, the book was translated and traditionally published in 37 different languages. So once it got fractioned being self published an agent reached out, I got an intro to an agent and said, Hey, this, you know, this things like the trajectory of this book is, is, is going off, you know, was on fire. We think that traditional publishers would be interested and publishers. And so, yeah. So then, so it’s, it’s still sell published in the U S and it’s traditionally published in 37 other countries. So RV: (12:14) Do you have to traditionally publish a book to make money from writing a book? HE: (12:19) No. I would say 90. RV: (12:23) That was a short, complete answer there. HE: (12:26) No, no. Tell us about it. 95 to 99% of authors I would say would be better served self publishing. I have 13 books or so, and all of them, except one is traditionally published. And that was last year. And here’s what I learned. The only thing that a publisher cares about, I shouldn’t say the only thing, their highest priority is the size of your platform. That’s it? That’s what you get paid in, advance on. It’s not on how good your idea. Everybody thinks I have the best idea ever. They don’t care because the best idea, if you don’t have an audience that you can reach that, that book too. That’s why anybody that’s on the news or has a talk show, Anderson Cooper, whoever, right? Like Oprah, they get a multimillion dollar band because the publisher knows that it’s a guaranteed success, right? It’s a business. HE: (13:12) So if you have a large platform of, you know, let’s say a hundred thousand followers, then it’s worth shopping around to a traditional publisher and seeing what kind of advance you can get. But the big difference is you’re going to get, you know, let’s say on average, 10, 12% of the royalties are of the book, the profits from the book, if you traditionally publish, when you self publish, you get anywhere from 70 to 90% of the profits. And so in the long game, you’re, you know, you’re almost always better off to self publish. So, RV: (13:47) So I love that. So thank you. Thank you for that. It’s funny you use that 100,000 number. We use the same number. We say once you have a hundred thousand followers, that’s about the time to start, look at traditional publishing. And when you can move 10,000 units, when you feel like you can sell 10,000 units on opening week, that’s when it’s time to think about bestseller, you know, like bestseller, New York times wall street journal, kind of a thing, but the money here. So can you talk to us about how the money works? Like, we don’t need to know how much you make or anything, but like, I think a lot of people don’t realize that, like people say, you know, you don’t make money writing a book. It’s just a business, HE: (14:28) Which, yeah, RV: (14:29) It is a business card, but you actually can make a truckload of money from doing this, but can you walk us through, like, how does the money work? Like where does it actually, like if you, if I type a book, if I write out a book on my computer today, it took you three years and then I go print it and put it in Amazon, or I use create space, or then what happens? And where do you, where does, where do all the sales come? They come from Amazon. I’m assuming a lot of them happen in Amazon. HE: (14:59) Yeah. So all of, I mean, so all true. All self published books. So I self published through it was CreateSpace now it’s called it’s Kindle direct publishing, which they just took over create space. It’s all, they were all, it was an Amazon company. And and so that when you publish the book, you just check a box if you want it on Tindall right. So paperback, Kindle and then Amazon owns a company. I don’t know if it’s changed since I started doing this, but it was a C X, the letter, a letter C X acx.com. And that is what that is there. Audio book publishing arm. So audio book, self publishing. And so I, you earn on your traditional books. So my traditional, my paperback is or on my self published paperback it’s the retail price is 20 bucks is what I haven’t said at 1999. Amazon sells it for whatever they want, which usually ranges from 15 to 18. And I think I earn just under $9 per book compared to a dollar or two per book, if it was traditionally published. Right? So you sell you know, a thousand copies of the book, right times, you know, that’s, that’s what, $8,000 in income now on Kindle you price it at nine 99, you were in 70% yearning, $7 per book sold on Kindle. Okay. Sorry. Hold on. Sorry. Kindle. RV: (16:22) So, so like on paperback, you’re getting like 50% HE: (16:25) Ish. Yeah, yeah. 50% ish and 70% on, on Kendall. RV: (16:30) Got it. Okay. 50% paperback and then 70%. HE: (16:33) And it’s not an exact formula it’s based on the cost of printing based on how many pages you are. Right. So, so, but, but let’s say yeah, you know, 40, 50% and then on audible I got lucky when I signed on the audible, they used to have a sliding scale where the more books you sold, the higher your percentage jumped up and it stayed there forever. So we are now at 90% for audible. So we are nine on, but now that’s not the case anymore. They changed that model. It’s now a flat 40. So you had 40% of all your books sold an audible. When you go through the, the audible exchange, the ACX company, you can find a narrator, put up, put up, you know, a word, a PDF of your first chapter of your book. You can have people audition for it and then choose one and then either pay them a split or pay them upfront. RV: (17:21) Wow. I mean, that’s pretty simple. I mean, really like, that’s, it’s really pretty simple. And then you’re just basically like doing social media and emails and speaking, and webinars and like, whatever, like all the usual stuff, people go to Amazon or Kindle or audible, and then they buy books and, and then get, HE: (17:40) Yeah, you get a direct deposit in your bank account every month. That direct deposit every month. Yeah. Towards the end of the month. Okay. RV: (17:46) That’s so cool. I mean, and 2 million copies is, is all in for paperback, Kindle and audio. HE: (17:54) So 2 million copies, a half of that roughly is self published us and the other half are those other 37 foreign publishers. So the other half are across the other countries, which by the way, I think a million are in Brazil alone. That’s been the biggest, I think we’ve sold more books in Brazil than in the United States. It went crazy there. Wow. RV: (18:15) That’s so funny. I mean, it’s random how that stuff happens. And then, so talk to us about the, the community, the community. Yeah. Like w w w when did you start that? I mean, this is like, this is way before Facebook groups where like a strategy, you were just, I remember the first time we met, I can’t remember. Maybe it was probably John Ruhlin who interviewed, introduced us, or maybe, actually I think it was Peter Vogue actually, who introduced. And I think the first time you interviewed me, it was actually maybe in the community. I don’t even know if you had a podcast back then. I don’t know if that’s right, but, you know, anyways, tell us how did it start? HE: (18:54) W w where did this come from? So it was an 11th hour deal where I had sent the, my almost finished a manuscript for the miracle morning to a handful of my buddies. And I was like, Hey, will you guys read this and give you feedback? And Jon Vroman was like, Hey, have you thought about creating some sort of online group, any, and this was yeah, 2011, right. Or 12. He said, somewhere, he goes, it feels like this is going to be a lonely venture for a lot of people. Like, if they’re the only morning person, their family they’re by themselves. And there’s nobody to, to connect with and be held accountable to. And he goes, I could see them sliding backwards. I was like, Oh, that’s a great idea. You know, he goes, yeah. He goes, I go. And so I started looking like Kajabi. HE: (19:34) I’m like, maybe I’ll create like an online form. And he said, dude, if I were you, I would just do Facebook groups. He goes, don’t, don’t give people another place to log into because they don’t have that as a habit. You’re trying to get them to create a new habit. If they’re already on Facebook, they’ve got notifications built in the functionality of the group has already, he goes, I would remit the wheel, I’d go to Facebook. And I’m like, yeah. Great idea. So I started a Facebook group called the miracle morning community with me, my mom, dad, John Broman, my sister, right. Like, you know, a handful of us. And I put in the, in the book in the beginning, a special invitation join the miracle morning community to, you know, to, to get accountability and encouragement, swap smoothie, recipes, learn new meditation routines, like whatever. HE: (20:19) And I was the only one in there. I would just check in every day and put quotes and means and add value and right in there and this and that. And as the book sold, right. I mean, as the, you know, so in the beginning, the Facebook group mimicked the book sales because that’s where people found out about it. And and so it started out with, you know, grew to a few hundred people and then eventually crossed a thousand and that particular year, you know, and and then and then it just, it just kind of scaled up. And, and now there’s 270 some thousand members from over a hundred countries. And and they support each other. Like, I don’t, it doesn’t run on me. It’s, it’s them logging in every day. And it’s, we’ve really created this culture of people who are waking up every day and dedicating time to fulfilling their potential with their miracle morning. HE: (21:05) And then they’re, they’re lifting each other up, they’re supporting each other and you get in there, people that, you know, that will celebrate, you know, Hey, today’s day 100 of the miracle morning, and then you’ll get somebody that’s like, Hey, I’m brand new. My friend told me about this group in this book, but I’m not a morning person. Should I do it? And don’t get 150 people for an hour. And they’re like, dude, I was the same, I wasn’t a morning person. Like it works, you know? And, and then they’ll give it a try. So yeah, it’s become really, really, really, really a special, special place, RV: (21:35) Man. That, that is so awesome. And so just a technical question here, you know, like normally when you post on Facebook, a very small fraction of the people, see it when you posted in the Facebook group, like at that scale 270,000, is that similar that only a fraction of those people are seeing it? Or is it, is it, is it because it’s a group it’s a little, it’s a little different HE: (22:01) No, it’s still true. And it’s really, really frustrating. Right. I mean, it is what it is, but and we’re, and we have explored, you know, going with a different platform, like mighty networks and yeah, but it’s just, it’s this, it goes back to John Bowman’s original advice, which is like, you know, are they people really going to log into a different thing? And so we’re, that’s still ideal. We want to take the control of that, but to give you an idea yesterday, one of our admin Stephanie Blackbird, she runs the group in terms of the admin for it. And cause we get, you know, hundreds of new requests every day, somebody’s got to, you know, vet those. And she, but she posted, where are you from? And in less than 24 hours, we had over a thousand comments. You know what I’m saying? I’m from, I’m from Belgium, I’m from France, I’m from America, I’m from Russia and from you just all over the place. So I would imagine out of the 270,000 people, maybe 2000 saw it, you know what I mean? Like, so it’s, it’s definitely tough. RV: (22:59) Yeah. Well, I mean, whether you’re sending emails or you’re doing social media or, I mean, you’re always, you’re always dealing with that, but how cool that this community has taken a life of its own and and then it’s like, it just, it’s just growing, like it’s just this asset that just keeps making a bigger and bigger impact in the world. HE: (23:20) So like what else RV: (23:22) Do you do other than the book? I mean, the cool thing is if you have one great book, self published book like this, like you could actually make a pretty fine living just off of the book and then, and then you speak and any other parts of the business model that you’re working on or have been doing that you’re super excited about. I mean, obviously I know you’ve you were dealing with cancer here for a while, so that’s been, you know, that’s got to have been. HE: (23:46) Yeah, well, yeah. I’ll tell, I’ll tell you the Mo the miracle morning movie is coming out on 12, 12 to 2020, and there’s nothing I’m more excited about than that, but I will share what I turned before. I I’ll, I’ll get to that in a second. It was that when the book came out I, you know, I, then I started, I was a college speaker and I always wanted to be a keynote corporate speaker and be able to raise my fees and Reno reach more people. And so I used the book to plant the seed in there that, you know, when I was speaking at this event, when I was speaking at this event, you know, I can, you know, I’ll bring the miracle morning to you guys. Right. And and so almost every speech I’ve given in the last, you know, whatever eight years is some leader that read the book and wanted me to bring it to their people. HE: (24:30) Right. So it did, it might, my speaking career launched off of that. The so that was a speaking career. And then we started doing live events every year, and then God, last year, because I was having trouble with the chemo and depression and anxiety, I decided to take a year off of the event, which is this, it would have been this December and who knows what headache. It would have been trying to deal with the hotel and re refunding 500 tickets transitioning to LA, you know, online, who knows. So, so we did have live events. We did have a mastermind right now it’s it’s, I just do virtual keynotes, which are not the same as you know, I’m sure. And so, so, but books and virtual keynotes, and then, yeah, we were making a documentary called the miracle morning movie about five or six years ago, we started making this and I started going around and interviewing, you know, world-class influential people, Muhammad Ali, 18, or Mohammed Ali’s daughter, sorry, not Muhammad Ali mom and all these daughter, Laila Ali she’s in it, her morning routine, you know, Brendon Burchard, his morning routine Lewis, Howes, Robert Kiyosaki, Robin Sharma. HE: (25:40) We started interviewing all these world-class individuals, their morning routine. And that was the movie we were making. And and then I was diagnosed with cancer and I called our director and I said, Hey we gotta put the movie on hold, man. I’m, I’m fighting for my life. It’s not looking, it’s not, it doesn’t look good. And he said, you know, being a filmmaker, he said, actually, if you’re okay with it, I’d like to film this journey and, and, you know, come to the hospital and film you going through this. And Holy moly kind of caught me off guard. And thank God we pushed for it because the, the, the first hour of the movie is what we intended it to be. And the last 30 minutes is the most unexpected inspiring, you know, me fighting for my life, with my family, by my side, a wall, I’m still traveling the world trying to spread this mission. And yeah. And so that, that, that’s what I, my main focus right now is just launching this movie to the world on in December. And and then, and then I’ll take a breath and see what’s next from there. So did you so the, the, RV: (26:44) So the movie is that like, self-published too, like, did you pay for it? Did you get a film? You just got your own film crew and a director and said, Hey, I have a vision for a movie. I’m going to make my own fricking movie. HE: (26:56) Yes, yes, my buddy. So my buddy, Nick Conedera is a director. And a few years, like six years ago, he was at my house for dinner. He said, dude, we should make a movie about the miracle morning. Cause he’s in the miracle morning community. And he does it himself. And he would see these people, you know, this guy, Mike Keaton posted how he lost it. And he lost 90 pounds, six months after he started the miracle morning. And he had been obese his whole life. And he attributed to my miracle morning. And so Nick is goes, dude, we got a feature, all these stories of people overcoming depression and starting businesses and all the sudden you’re good morning. I was like, that’s a great idea. I said, but I don’t even know what that looks like, dude, like, right. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. HE: (27:34) Yeah. Yeah. Like, like I don’t even like talk to me later and he kept bugging me about it. And like a few months later, he, he, he found the angle and he called me and he said, how, what’s your mission in life? And I said to elevate, or actually back then it was to change millions of lives one morning at a time. And I said, why? He said, what percentage of our society, you’re trying to change the world. What percentage of our society read self help books? And right away, I kind of got where he was going. And I went, I like 1%, maybe he said, what percentage watch movies? And I went, you’re right. If we’re going to reach, if we’re going to reach the masses, it has to be in another format. And so that’s when we started making the movie and yeah, I funded it. We had a few producers, but I, for the most part, I funded 98% of it. And he, and then I started just meeting people that became part of the team that just kind of God put them in my life. And it was like, perfect. You know, RV: (28:31) That is amazing. How buddy, you are, you like, you are amazing and your, your life is been used for so much. Good. And then continues to be used for so much. Good. And I just buddy, I’m so grateful for you. Where do you, where should people go if they want to connect to you? Obviously you’ve got the Facebook group. Where else would you direct people to? HE: (28:54) Yeah. Miracle morning.com is the best hub. You can find all the books from there. You can join the community from there. You know, you can join the join, the email list. We don’t the movie isn’t for sale yet. We’re working on getting the site up and stuff. People can buy tickets for the world, premier, which is gonna be really cool on 12, 12, 20, 20, we’re doing the miracle morning movie experience, the world premiere. It’s going to be the worldview of the film followed by an immediate, like, how do you implement this? So like, okay, you just watched a movie, you were all excited, you know, about the miracle morning, how do you start it tomorrow morning? And I’m going to teach how to do that. And there’ll be like a live Q and a with me and the director and the team. And then there’ll be a 30 day challenge that people will be able to join, you know, for free. And so yeah, so go to miracle morning.com. And if you join the email list, you’ll get my weekly podcast. You’ll get that way. We don’t RV: (29:42) Sell anything really to you. It’s just, we just try to add value. And until the movie comes out, I love it. Well, we’ll put miracle morning.com in the show notes, rather, thank you for what you do and for your story and your faith. And just for keeping the fight for yourself and your family. And obviously for the message, we, we appreciate you and we pray for you and we wish you the best. Thanks brother. Appreciate you, man. Keep doing what you’re doing.

Ep 109: Why Research is Your Competitive Advantage with Jason Dorsey | Recap Episode

AJV: (00:06) RV: (00:07) Hey, welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. We’re breaking down the interview with one of our best friends, Jason Dorsey about him and his wife and business partner, Denise, via dr. Denise via and their new book Z conomy about generation Z and how they’re going to affect the future of the world of business and all things, personal brands. So babe, what were some of your big takeaways from listen to our friend, Jason, in the professional setting that we do? AJV: (00:40) Now, it’s always so great to get a chance to listen to friends. Cause you forget. Wow. Really smart friend. Wow. You’re so smart. Like you have all these amazing skillsets. So I think that one for anyone who has a cause it’s so fun to get to interview people that you’re actually really close to in life, because as friends, you don’t really get to know all the intimate details of their professional lives sometimes. And this is just such a great chance to be like, wow, like I’m so honored to like get to be in your life because you’re so good at what you do. So anyways, that’s just a major kudos to Denise and Jason for just for being so smart. So cool. We love you guys. So here’s one of the things that I wrote looking at my notes here is that I thought this was so fascinating and I knew this, but it had never really clicked before. AJV: (01:35) Jason talked a lot about, he said the more research that we did over the course of time the more data we collected the more just information that we gathered, the more in demand we became. And I thought that was really fascinating. And he said that what they started to realize is that research, it was their uniqueness. It was what really differentiated them in the marketplace and really set them apart and thought leadership. It wasn’t just a motivational speaker or a funny speaker or a really great speaker. It was like, no, this is founded in data. It’s founded in research. That that means something to how you recruit and hire and lead and train. And in his case, millennials now moving on to gen Z, but that research was their uniqueness. It’s what set them apart. It’s what got them on TV and all these national media spots. It’s what helped them increase their fees is they became true thought leaders in the millennial, the generational conversation that has really been really big for the last 20 years. And now they’re changing that ever so slightly to be on gen Z, which will keep them very busy for the next 20 years. RV: (02:51) Yeah. And you mentioned research it’s, it’s interesting. I don’t think their expertise is so much on millennials. I’m just thinking, Speaker 3: (03:00) Thinking not so much on millennials, but it’s on research, which means that it makes them timeless in terms of it. And, and a Z economy of course, is the new book that is all about this next era and this wave. So that was my big takeaway too, is just the power of research. And it was, I felt a little bit of a permission to when they said that there’s, there’s different levels of research. And so you can start with something basic and then kind of like work your, your, your way up. But I loved this quote when he said success is when competitors have to cite your study because your data is, is so good. So that’s something for us to aspire, aspire to. Yeah. So that was the same takeaway for me. AJV: (03:45) Yeah. I thought it was just so good. And I just, I thought this was good to just kind of sum up that point. And he said that research is what separated them in a crowded market. Right. So for those of you who feel like you’re in a crowded market, looking at research and data as a competitive advantage, I think is is really unique. Okay. Why don’t you go ahead and do your second one? Speaker 3: (04:06) My second one was really just understanding this was more of a generational thing than it was you know, how they built their business, but related to where they were saying, well, Jason said a generation isn’t changing. They’re just bringing who they are into the marketplace. And so you need to know them and that’s that’s just a quick like pivot you need to make in your, in your brain. And as a personal brand, you gotta go, okay, who are these people? I have to know who generation Z is and I need to adapt to them. It’s not that they’re changing for me. It’s just, they grew up in a different world with a different set of belief systems and, you know, politics and technology. And so knowing really who they are and, and not being frustrated, like there’s somehow changing from you, but also realizing, gosh, in order to stay relevant in the next generation, I have to adapt some of the things that I do, some of my content, some of the ways I deliver content to reach that generation. And that was just a, AJV: (05:09) Yeah. Can you talk specifically around video? These people are so used to absorbing information through video that if you really want to reach them, it’s gotta be in video. It’s not photographs, it’s not static post it’s video. I think that was, there was a great discussion around video. So if you’re, you know, a little video shy to talk about who is your demographic and here are you reaching. And if it’s in this younger, you know, at this point, you know, gen Z is all the way up to age 24, right? So they’re in your consumer market to some degree. So yeah, I thought that was great. I’m going to read this a little bit. Cause when I listened to it, I took some really tedious notes. AJV: (05:51) So a couple of other things that I put down here if say this is, I thought this was really smart. The data isn’t quite good enough, you have to be able to translate the data into a story that connects with your audience. And I thought that was really smart. And I think so, so often you think, okay, I need data. I need research. It’s like, I need numbers and I need charts and diagrams. And that’s what you think about with data. And he’s going, no data alone is no good. Nobody just, nobody emotionally connects to numbers. And he didn’t say this, or this is what I heard, but you need an emotional story tied to the data that people can connect with, that they can relate to, that they can see themselves or their company or their audience in. And he said that, you know, just even a media, right? They don’t want you to talk about numbers. It’s what are the numbers mean? Like who are the people? What are they buying? Right? What, what, how does that change? How you do business, that those are emotional things. So the data alone isn’t good enough. It’s how do you take that data and turn it into real life stories that have an emotional connection. That is what will differentiate you. That is true thought leadership. It’s not just getting numbers on a piece of paper. It’s translating those things into real stories with real emotion. Speaker 3: (07:19) Yeah. That’s cool. Thought that data is the starting point of the story and really what people are after is the story. So my third takeaway you actually already mentioned was that gen Z specifically was their language. Their native tongue is video. And I was thinking about those of you that are writers going, okay, well, what does that mean for you? If maybe you’re, you don’t want to be on the camera, you know, or you don’t like to be kind of front and center, but it’s going okay, how can I still adapt? And this came up actually in one of our events, somebody asked this question specifically and there’s some really good collaborative discussion. And what came out of that discussion was going okay, well, if you’re a writer and you don’t like to be on video, you can write and then read your writing and overlay it on top of still images or stock Royal, you know, royalty, free footage. And if you don’t want to read it, you can get a voiceover, you know, like you can get someone to voiceover it, but you can still take the written form of content and produce it into video, which if you’re going to connect with gen Z, that’s probably something you should look at doing so that, you know, hit me. It was like, we gotta go video. Everything has got to find a way to be on video because that’s, that’s who they are. AJV: (08:38) That means more showers or having to do Speaker 3: (08:45) More hairspray. Yes. More hair. AJV: (08:49) Okay. My third one you kinda mentioned it earlier, but I’m just going to touch on a little bit more. I said, you don’t have to hire a research firm to start getting data rich, right? You don’t have to go out and spend thousands of dollars to have your own data to have data. He said, one of the first things that you can do is just start compiling all of the research studies that have already been done in your space. Third parties citing them. But then talking about that as you know, one of your core differences is like, Hey, you base it on this research, you base it on the studies, you base it on this data, you base it on this X, Y, and Z. And that you don’t have to be the one to foot the bill to do all of the research that other people are doing research. AJV: (09:34) Just so other people like you we’ll use it, we’ll cite it and we’ll give them credit for it, which is fine. I just think that was really also insightful of going, Hey, have your trying to create real thought leadership. It has to be more than just a personal story, right? It’s got to be a personal story, tied to data. That’s been connected back to a story and that’s really forwarding the message where it’s really concrete and substance, but you don’t have to pay for it. There’s plenty of research studies and data out there go and compile the most credible ones. He talks a lot about how do you know which ones are credible? It’s, it’s definitely an interview you want to listen to not just to learn about gen Z, which is fascinating. But also just like, okay, well, how do I get in this research game? And what does that mean? And what does that look like? And how can you start dipping your toes in it without spinning? RV: (10:34) Yep. So there’s at least two reasons to go buy the Zee economy. Book one is so you can learn about gen Z and know who the heck they are and how you can reach them. And two is to watch one of the best in the business in terms of Jason and dr. Denise via Jason Dorsey and dr. Denise via who’s his wife and business partner and how they make data, become a part of their brand and learn about it. So that’s what we got for you. Thanks for tuning in buys economy, and we’ll see you next time. Bye. Bye [inaudible].

Ep 108: Why Research is Your Competitive Advantage with Jason Dorsey

Speaker 1: (00:05) [Inaudible] RV: (00:07) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:02) You’re about to meet one of the smartest people that I know, one of my best personal friends, someone that I learn a ton from, and I admire tremendously. Jason Dorsey is truly one of the, I think, most respected, true thought leaders in the world. Somebody who’s work defines our world and helps us redefine our world. So he is the leading generational researcher. I think in the world he’s been on 60 minutes. He’s been on the today show. He’s been on the early show. He’s been on over 200 shows. I mean, he’s on national TV on almost a weekly basis and him and his wife. Okay. So Denise via is the CEO of gen HQ and they are a research firm that helps huge companies conduct data driven, you know, empirical analysis on the trends of how generations are buying, selling, working. And they have a brand new book that’s coming out called Z economy. RV: (02:09) How gen Z is going to change the future of business and what to do about it. So this affects you as a personal brand. We’re going to talk a little bit about how Jason and Denise have built their careers up to where they are at now. And Jason was recently inducted into the professional speaking hall of fame. He’s had over 1000 standing ovations and there’s also one of the most dynamic onstage presenters that I have ever, ever seen. So Jason, welcome to the show, buddy. Thank you. Just thrilled and honored to be with you. And I just want to say thank you for all that I’ve learned from you about brand building and developing a platform and really being able to leverage ideas and to influence. So thank you so much for having me on and for your friendship. It’s truly an honor to be with you today. JD: (03:00) Of course, brother. So I think hopefully don’t mind me sharing this. You’re one of the highest paid speakers in the world and specifically among speakers who are paid a lot of money who are no offense I would put in the non-celebrity Speaker 4: (03:16) Non-Celebrity yes, definitely a non-celebrity over here reminded about that, JD: (03:20) But my nine year old daughter every day that I’m not a celebrity. And when I think about why, okay, we talked about a lot of the reasons why, you know, being amazing on stage, you have been in this industry a long time, but I think that your super power is probably research. And of course, Jen HQ you, you the center for generational kinetics is actually the name of the firm, right? So you guys do real research and so can you just talk about like, what do you, what do you do there as a research firm and how do you think that that shapes, you know, or has shaped your speaking career in terms of what separates you from other speakers, authors, thought leaders, you know, et cetera. Yeah, it’s a great question. And so I think maybe to go back a little bit, I got into this when I was 18 years old and I didn’t have a resource like you or, or other groups that could sort of help me to figure out what my path would be to become an author and speaker and a consultant and eventually a board member and so forth. JD: (04:22) So I had to sort of stumble my way through as many of us do. I ended up sleeping on the floor of a garage apartment when I was 18. I was $50,000 in debt. I had 5,000 books that I had self printed and no idea what I was doing, which is probably a good thing. Cause I may not have gotten that if I do what I was doing, but, but out of that, I sort of took the traditional path of in order to be an expert, I should write a book, which I still believe is one of the absolute best ways to get out there. It’s not the only way, but it’s a great way to do it. It shows depth of understanding and, and sort of a body of work or around a question or strategy or topic or something. So I wrote this first book and then eventually I started speaking for free. JD: (04:58) And then eventually I started getting paid a few hundred dollars and then more, and then I guess it was two or three years later, I was keynoting event. It was me and Barbara Bush, 5,000 people in arena, fireworks, going off. And, and to some degree I sort of thought I’d made it, you know, my mom was there. So that was really helpful. So that was my mini celebrity moment. And then after that, I realized that people would pay me to speak and that there was actually a business here to be a brand at that particular time talking about my generation, which we eventually called the millennials. But back then we did, and it was just young adults. And so I would go when I would speak and write and do all that. And I did that for many years, wrote a bunch more books. And then I ended up on 60 minutes and it was sort of one of those watershed moments, certainly for me in my career, but also around the topic of generations. JD: (05:46) Because until then it wasn’t nearly as hot of a topic, but that 60 minute episode really got the attention, particularly of executives, entrepreneurs, baby boomers, frankly, people that had money and influence and were makers. They then called me up and said, you know, we’ve hired your generation, Jason, they’re terrible. Their pants are falling off. You know, their moms here, they won’t work on their birthday. Like, you know, what’s wrong with you. And so I sort of became the flak jacket if you will, for my generation. And in doing that, I’m speaking at all these corporate board events and just, you know, doing what I do. And I’ll remember distinctly, I was at this one boardroom and I was, I was meeting with the board and the CEO of this public company. So it’s publicly held company trades on the New York stock exchange at the time basically said that millennials were terrible and head and they just had all these problems with it. JD: (06:34) So I not knowing any better when afterwards. And I asked their head of HR, I said, would you mind sending me the data so I could understand the problem that we just heard about because I want to make sure I can contextualize it. Cause then maybe I can try to, to solve for, to come up with some ideas. So they sent me the data and I looked at the data. I’ll never forget it. And the data didn’t match what the CEO had just said. And that was a huge deal because I, you know, I’ve served on the board of a public company. I serve on lots of private company boards right now it’s unusual that a CEO would make such a bold claim that isn’t grounded in their own data. Right? And so I went through the niece, my wife, who has a PhD, and I said, Denise, this is the strangest thing. JD: (07:16) You know, it just was with this company. They’re amazing. The CEO said this, I got the data set. And then the data does not match what the CEO just said. I said, what do you think we should do? And she said, we should start a research company. She said, because then we can give people great data, accurate data, and then they can make better decisions. And if we control the data, if we, if it’s our data, then we’re the people that they’re going to keep coming back to in order to help them grow their business or whatever the problem is you’re trying to solve. So that was how we created the center for generational kinetics. And Diddy’s being a professional researcher, became the CEO, ran up all of our research. And then we started doing more and more research. And we started doing research in the U S and then we started doing research outside the U S multiple languages and what ultimately happens. JD: (08:00) And I think this is so important for people who want to build their brand is the more data that we collected that was our own. The more people came to us for that information, for that context, for that insight. And so when you want to separate yourself in a market, one of the things I’ve learned to do is to be unique or different from everybody else that now I may not be better. I happen to think in most cases, our solutions are better, but I’m certainly different because we’ve now done more than 65 generational studies around the world. We’ve worked with over 700 clients, including many of the biggest brands in the world. And every time we work with clients, we get their data. And you can imagine now when somebody comes to me from, I don’t know, pick an industry life insurance and says, Jason, you know, can you help us think about the generational impact on the life insurance category and what our sales professionals need to know? JD: (08:46) I can say absolutely. In fact, I know exactly what works to sell life insurance, to millennials, gen X and boomers, and why one generation tries one technique to sell and that work with this generation of customers and vice versa. But then I can take that and apply it to automotive. I can apply it to physicians and healthcare. I can apply that to technology B2B enterprise company. So all of a sudden what we did, and it was not intentional. What we did is the more data that we created, the more research we did, the more we stood out in the market and you asked, you know, how do we charge the fees that we get that we receive? It’s because people are hiring me because we bring this data. This research has insights to everything that we do. So even if I don’t do a study for someone, the fact is I’ve already done 15 studies in automotive. JD: (09:28) I don’t have to do that. So they already know what it was, and I’m still getting data from all these different sources. And so for me, like when we wrote this economy book, what I think makes it so powerful. So we have all this data about gen Z. Who’s now 24 years old, as they relate to, let’s say millennials and gen X and baby boomers. And so for people out there, let’s just use the book as an example that wanted to let’s say, recruit or motivate or retain gen Z. They don’t have time managers out there to go try a whole bunch of stuff and see what works. They want to know what works. So we’re able to give them that, cause we’ve already proven it same with marketing or sales or building trust or driving influence. And that’s what people pay us for. They pay us to bring context and data driven insights and help them solve a specific problem. Right? I’m not a raw speaker. I’m not, you know, I, wasn’t a coach of a professional football team. I don’t do that. I help people understand how to solve tough generational challenges. And right now, like in our case, gen Z and millennials are upending. Every major industry, huge issues being created and they need to be solved so that leaders can move forward, grow their own personal brand, but also move their business forward. And so that’s how we got into this. And what was left RV: (10:33) You think for you that they’re all causing ruckus. Cause that’s key that keeps you in high demand, screwing everything up JD: (10:40) For everybody. Well, and that, so let’s take that comment. Cause I think it’s a really good one. So, so the perception we hear from executives all the time is, you know, Jen’s Dean, they’re driving all this change or just all of this change. They’re creating all this problems. And argument is no, they’re not. They’re just doing what they’ve always done. It’s all they’ve ever known for them. This isn’t changed. This isn’t new. This is indifferent. This is purely all they’ve ever known in terms of how to communicate what their work styles are, what their motivations are. What’s important to them. And they’re bringing that into an environment. The environment sees it as change, but gen Z and even millennials, they don’t see it as change. It’s all they’ve ever known. Why are you calling me, send me a text. You want me to do bring a checkbook? JD: (11:23) I don’t have one. You know, like these sorts of things are real deal. And so in the book in particular, we try to humanize with a bunch of Jensey stories, but also have managers who are sharing their personal stories, working with Genti marketers, talking about how they’re using social media and why certain things work and certain things don’t. And I think that’s the biggest issue for me. So we’ve sort of built our brain on the idea that we separate generational myth from truth. That’s really the key, right? We separate myths from truth and that’s what most people want are smart. If they can just get the truth, they’ll make a great decision, but they don’t know who to trust, where to go for the information so forth. And so we can bring that to them. So as a brand, you know, my brand evolved originally. JD: (12:04) I was a writer, writer wrote my first book and then I became a speaker. I didn’t become a speaker out of strategy. I became a speaker cause nobody bought the book, but I could eventually I got offered a free lunch to speak. And then I got offered dinner to speak. And then I got paid on a hundred dollars, whatever. And so, so all of that. So I went from author, really being passionate about a subject to being a speaker and then trying to figure out how to communicate well, right? 3000 talks around the world to all kinds of audiences. I mean the same kind of big stages you speak on. And then from that going into research and every time I’ve done that our fees have gone up, demand has gone up, influence has gone up the media, calls us all the time because we have the data. And so for me, when I think about building a brand, for example, this economy book is the way we’re going to base our brand for the next 10 years, gen Z is not going away. So do this and put it out and build on it. RV: (12:53) I want to talk about gen Z specifically in a second, because I think it’s, it’s you know, they are a massive force in the world, which is going to affect all of our businesses before we do that though, in terms of research. Okay. So, so let’s say that I’m, you know, I’m not a generational speaker, but I speak on something marriages or health or money or something. JD: (13:20) What, what does research, what does research mean? RV: (13:23) Like really mean and how can I, how can I do something semi substantive at lease and semi, you know, like I think there’s gotta be different levels of research, right? Like one thing is like, Hey, I did an Instagram poll to my followers. Another might be, Hey, I actually conducted a survey and I found some audience, another level might be, I hired some research from, and then maybe the next level is I hired an actual researcher that was on my team. Like, can you just walk us through like the varying levels of like what counts as research? And, and, and to what extent we really need to be able to do it in order to kind of cite it as fact and truth and not just like, you know, my Instagram poll. JD: (14:07) Yeah, absolutely. So I think there’s a, a pretty big difference between data and research. And so a lot of people confuse the two. And so for let’s take your Instagram poll. I actually think social media polls are great way to drive engagement, but they don’t represent really anything other than the people who happen to follow you more than likely or you’re advertising to, and then sub some subgroup of those that happen to be so entice that without being paid any money and they have nothing else to do that they’re actually going to complete the poll. Right. And so if you think about who it represents, I would argue probably doesn’t even represent your followers. It represents some subgroup that at that moment was interested enough and didn’t have something else going on that they wanted to participate and receive nothing in return for it. JD: (14:47) Right. So it’s helpful. It’s interesting. You want to share it and it’s a great data point, right? It’s, it’s really interesting. And you’ll probably find a lot of things that will help to inform future things. We wouldn’t consider that research, but we will consider it interesting. And I wouldn’t say that it’s wrong or bad. It’s just one source of data. But I think the problem is people do an Instagram poll or a Facebook poll, or they email their list and then they put it out as infantry search. And that I think is where you, you can, it’s a very slippery slope for us, generally speaking quantitative research, which is primarily what we do. We’re always looking to have a very low margin of error usually plus, or minus 3.1 19 out of 20 times. And so if somebody comes to me and says, Jason, I want to know your methodology. JD: (15:29) I want to know your sample. Then I absolutely want to be able to share that with them, help them to understand it. And I always say in my talks, if people are citing data, but they don’t tell you where they got it from, or they don’t tell you the methodology and sample be very leery because they could have just pulled their friends. They could have just asked their family. They could have asked a group that they knew was going to answer in a very specific way. So sort of on your, your hierarchy, if you will, of what you provided. So, you know, polls and things to your friends, which by the way, that’s a great way to understand your list and a great way to understand your followers. There’s probably even, Speaker 5: (16:00) Yeah. There’s other uses there’s other uses for that data point. JD: (16:04) Absolutely. And if it’s for internal insights in particular, I think that’s fabulous. What you don’t want to do is go start publishing that as if it’s research because anybody who’s an actual researcher, we’ll, we’ll fight, we’ll poke holes in it and that’s it like somebody like us, we have to be careful. We have PhD researchers because other PhD researchers are looking at our research. Right. And so we know that that’s sort of the, just the way it works. So you have the poles like you talked about, and then you could say go up. Like, here’s what I would do. If somebody came to me, cause we work with lots of big name celebrities and we do this for lots of companies that the easiest way to understand what’s going on in an industry that you want to be an expert in is to go and aggregate third party research. JD: (16:43) What I mean by that is you go from find research from all different sources where they did actual studies and then you put it together. And now you sort of have your one page five page, 10 page, 50 page source document of all this great research that other people have paid for, but they’ve released it publicly. Like for us, most of our research, we never released publicly because our clients want to use it as a competitive advantage in the marketplace. And then we have some that want to be really positioned as thought leaders. And so they want to release the research and bring something different to that conversation. And we help them get tons of media and get on TV shows and all this kind of jazz. But, but if we’re going back to the personal brand side, then what I would say is you want to start with this sort of landscape research where you take whatever you can find out there. JD: (17:27) And if you have no budget, you just find all the free stuff and you sort of synthesize it together, you cite it correctly. And now you’ve got this foundational piece of information, right? That you can then refer to going like a step up from that. You could join, let’s say a syndicated study or some other study where there’s a whole bunch of people chipping in, in order to do a really great study. That’s pretty common. And then you can jump up if a mortar, which is to what we do, which is customer. And we do quantitative research, qualitative research, we do mixed method, all kinds of things. But the key there is I like on the quant side, we’re doing pretty large studies, a thousand completes 2000 completes 5,000 complaints. We’re doing it around the world. We’re waiting it to something like the, let’s say the us census for age, gender, geography, and ethnicity or whatever it is. JD: (18:07) And then we’ll do like maybe I just want to find out about people who I don’t know started college, but didn’t finish or people who are small business owners that are millennials and female, right? Whatever those are, I would do studies built around those. And so, as you want to, frankly, as yet to spend more money, you can do much more complex studies. You can do more complex analytics with the data and so forth. But fundamentally what I would say to somebody can mean said, look, Jason, I got no money. Where would I start? I would say, great. What I would do is I go find all the publicly available research. You can put it together in some source documents, cite everything correctly, which is really the key. And then you can start to talk about it, cause it doesn’t have to be your data as long as it’s released publicly and you cite them appropriately. JD: (18:48) I mean, our research gets quoted all the time and that’s how we get so much media. It’s shocking how many other people use our research and their work. I mean, part of the reason we even did this economy book is because we do this study called the state of gen Z. We do it every year and have done it for many years. And that’s really sort of the source study for people trying to understand gen Z. And it was getting so much publicity that we ended up doing this economy book in many ways, because we wanted to go really deep around those core questions and strategy. So I personally believe that research is one of the best ways to separate yourself, particularly in a crowded market. And like there’s, there’s competition everywhere. It doesn’t matter what your topic is, motivation, strategy, generations, leadership, whatever. Right. And so anything you can do to distinguish yourself in a credible way, particularly through research, I think is very valuable. And I believe that if you want to work with executives and entrepreneurs and people that are making big bets, the more data and research that you can bring, the more you’re going to have trust with them because they will know that you know what you’re talking about. And I think that’s really important, even more so where do you RV: (19:50) Nine? I mean, that’s really a powerful, that’s so practical and powerful is just to like, even for your own confidence that you’re not just sharing random thoughts off your head, but it’s like, Hey, this is based. Okay. JD: (20:02) Some, some statistically valid RV: (20:05) Work, even if I, if, even if it’s not my original work, where do you find third party research? You just go to like Google and type it in or is there JD: (20:14) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What I always suggest to people. So we do customer research. We do custom research for brands who do it for companies who do it for lots of big institutional investment groups. We do it for tons of people. So that’s our core business, but if somebody wanted to not use us, so let’s say, I, you know, they say, I don’t want to work for the center for generational kinetics. I’m not interested in, you know, whatever the topics are, where we specialize. I want to go hire somebody else. I would just go on Google and would always tell people is get three bids. You’ll be stunned, how different the pricing will be for the same exact thing, dramatically different pricing. If you’ve got five, you have five. And so then you sort of got to work through and say, okay, what’s going to get me what I want. JD: (20:56) What would I have confidence in the deliverables they’re going to provide? Are they going to help me to understand it? Or do they just write a survey and send me the answers? Then I got to go figure it out. Like our specialty is we write really great questions, but that’s what, that’s what we have so much business. And then we turn it into really powerful deliverables. And so what happens is you can do a great study, but if you can’t tell a good story based on the data, then it doesn’t matter how great the study is because people won’t be engaged to it. So you really got to be able to write great questions, have the right sample do all the things that you do and sort of good research hygiene. And then from there, the next step is turning it into that story based in the data that connects with the people you’re trying to reach. JD: (21:36) Maybe those are executives. Maybe those are entrepreneurs. Maybe they’re meeting planners, whoever it is they are, but they need to be able to understand why that, that research is important to them. Why do they need to take action on it? Why should they engage with you? And that I think is where it starts to get very powerful. I think people very often go cheap on research because they think, Oh, I just need to do a study. And I’m going to throw a few thousand dollars at it or something. And then they’re frequently disappointed. They say research doesn’t work, but it’s sorta like you. And I joke about, well, if you pay for, you know, an inexpensive speaker and you’re not happy with them, you probably got what you paid for. You know, that there’s not always a direct correlation, but oftentimes there’s enough, particularly if they’ve been around for a long time, but then RV: (22:15) Aggregating third party stuff. Like you’re saying that you can just search like the state of gen Z. You guys make that available just on your website and stuff like, so you’re saying you can find credible third party research just to help you understand your own space just by basically searching around and then looking for in their citation. What’s their margin of error and their sample size and that kind of stuff to make sure you’re looking at a valid JD: (22:40) Peace. Yeah. All great research will share their methodology. So if you go on our website, which is gen hq.com, GE and hq.com, you can click on state of gen Z. You’ll see our state of gen Z research studies there for those who are still sort of unsure what this looks like. You can see lots of research done for other clients. And so anytime something’s publicly available on the web, it usually says, you know, here’s our methodology, but also says, here’s how this can be used. If you want to use it, make sure you cite us. You know, if you’re going to publish it, make sure you link back that kind of thing. And by the way, you want to do that because that’s the right way to do it. And so yeah, I would go with the third party research first. I think that that’s statistically valid, put it together and provide it to people in a way that’s very helpful for them to understand something. JD: (23:20) A lot of times people think that research is about solving problems. Like we happen to use it for solving problems, but it may just be understanding a situation. Sure. If you don’t have understanding, you can’t drive towards that resolution, you can’t innovate. And so it brings a different perspective. You know, I’ll use millennials or gen Z as an example, lots of our clients say they know gen Z or millennials, and then they start to describe them. I’m like, well, that’s your kid or your grandkid, but that’s not the 80 other millennials, you know, in the U S or RV: (23:51) That’s not a statistically valid sample. It’s not, JD: (23:54) It’s a sample of one that, you know, you happen to have a lot of emotional tie to. And so we always joke that, that a lot of our clients have a proxy for the generation and that representative of the generation is their child or grandchildren. And usually the one that’s most frustrating for them. And so they’re stunned when we say, you know, gen Z is the fastest growing generation in the workforce. Millennials are the largest generation in the workforce, millennials outspend every other generation last year, millennials were the number one generation to refer their friends, gen Z or the key group of trendsetters right now for the first time, the youngest, which is gen Z. RV: (24:29) So let me, let me stop there. Cause I wanna, I want to officially transition here to the, to the, to the Z economy book and to gen Z, because I, I think that, you know, this expertise and the data you’re talking about. So if you put your hat on, so let’s just steal a little bit of free consulting from Jason Dorsey as personal brands that are, you know, communicating about a variety of topics, but we’re kind of like establishing thought leadership and things. What are, what are the things that we need to know about gen Z, that the data is telling you that you go okay, if you’re trying to reach this audience and why we either should or should not care about reaching the audience, but just like, what are some of the macro trends? I mean, obviously that’s what Z economy book is all about is like in the state of gen Z report. But I think if, as you apply that to personal brands, what are some of the things you think we could be on the lookout for? JD: (25:25) Yeah, absolutely. So I’ll show you, I’ll share with you some things that you should do and what to avoid. So in terms of things to absolutely do, like for us, we know a gen Z, they’re very values driven in terms of how they engage with brands and they don’t just engage. They join a brand. And so if you’re going to go out and you’re going to promote whatever it is that you’re, you know, is your personal brand or your larger brand, it’s very important. You share the why behind what you do. And I don’t mean like the Simon Sinek, why, I mean the, you know, how are you going to make the world a better place? How are you helping your local community? How are you working to combat some of these social challenges that gen Z is very much connected to this and we’ve seen it over and over and over in our research around the world. JD: (26:04) So it’s very important to have that mission, that thing that you’re owning, that you’re saying you’re tied to, it’s not just about making money. In fact, gen Z is more frugal than millennials. Gen Z has a higher savings rate. They’re looking for coupons and discounts are entering the workforce later than ever before. They’re going to graduate college there than ever before. 12% of them were already saving for retirement at age 22. Like, I mean some pretty staggering numbers for a generation so young. So if you want to message to them, and again, this is 24 and under you want to be very thoughtful that you’re in alignment with their values, whichever ones, you know, obviously they gotta be your values, but you want to make sure that they’re in alignment and you’re talking about things that are going to resonate with them. And then you to walk the talk on that, you can’t just say it. We saw so many brands over the last 12 months get completely blown up on social media because they said one thing and then they didn’t do it, or, you know, and so that lack of alignment gen Z will call you out so fast for that. So I think that’s really important. The second is RV: (26:59) They socially aware, is that like you would say, they’re kind of like socially aware, JD: (27:04) Well, they’re, they’re aware of social causes, right? They want, they want to know that you’re about more than just making money. And so much of personal branding unfortunately, is like, here’s how to make money or get rich or do this. And then people turn around and try to sell that. Like that’s interesting for gen Z. In fact, we would argue that gen Z would prefer to a side hustle versus trying to Steven start their own business. There’s a bunch of reasons for that tied around risk and money. But, but the idea here is you want to be really clear what you stand for so they can understand and decide if they, if it resonates with them. The second we know is they are very much into video and not into reading. That doesn’t mean they don’t read because they do read. But in terms of them taking the effort to engage with the brand videos where they start, that’s where we see things like ticktock doing so incredibly well or Snapchat and even Instagram. And obviously you’re the expert on videos. So that the video is what pulls them in and drives that sense of engagement reading for many young people is work doesn’t mean they don’t like to do it. It’s just work. And they’re used to just getting so much content through video that if you’re not providing a video, you’re missing them, all the posts with photos and all this stuff. Interesting. But you really want to pull them in. RV: (28:08) Oh, so not even phone, not even photos, you’re saying like donate, don’t think of photo and video is the same video is different. JD: (28:16) Definitely. Yeah, absolutely great distinction video. We find much more effective than photo or an image. They don’t like Photoshop things that are fake things that are perfected. That’s why you see brands like Arie who’s in this economy book doing so well with gen Z, where they’re showing like real images of real women, these kinds of things. So that a real desire for sort of rawness, I think is very strong with them. But we also see when we look at gen Z is if you are trying to sell them something, they need to know they’re getting a good deal. Now that’s important because they are very fiscally conservative or practical with their money. We see that they use coupons, they have this high savings rate, they get money for their birthday. They put it away and then ask their parents for money to go buy stuff. JD: (28:54) They really there’s a lot of that in the book. Does that mean that it reflects all gen Z? No, because our belief is generations or clues and not a box, but they’re powerful clues that do three things. They allow you to connect with build trust and drive influence. And if you can do that at a high level, you can grow your brand faster, but we also see what gen Z, if you want to engage with them, you have to understand their life stage. Remember they’re doing everything later than previous generations. That’s getting their driver’s license later in any other generation and into the workforce later RV: (29:22) Boggles my mind, my, my niece, like she waited like a year to get her driver’s license. And I’m like, everyone I know. Was there the day JD: (29:33) That you were eligible for a driver’s life RV: (29:35) That blew my mind? JD: (29:37) Yeah. Well, th that the concept of freedom, which is underlying that the, that for other generations, your driver’s license was your passport to freedom. Lose your ability to leave your home. Well, gen Z, we find don’t need that for a variety of reasons. We could go into all those take the rest of the time, but, but fundamentally they don’t attach the same thing to a driver’s license. And so if you have a different view of it, then you’re engaging with is different. Even owning a car, sounds like work and expense, but you don’t have to do it in a lot of places. So all of that, that’s why I say, you know what? Work with millennials. Tell brands this all the time, but we’re moving millennials. Doesn’t work with gen Z because they’re not millennials 2.0, I mean, they are completely different. They don’t remember a time before social media. JD: (30:16) They’ve always been able to do everything through, by sliding a finger on a screen. I mean, it’s fascinating. They’ll never write a check. They’ll never have a landline at home. All this stuff that’s sort of millennials started and was new and different gen Z doesn’t remember anything, but that in fact, gen Z does not remember nine 11. And that was one of our biggest discoveries. And that’s when he got here. So yeah, I mean, this generation is so different, more diverse than millennials. So in the book, a NC economy, we talk about this because if you can bring this accurate context, then you can figure out what to do. But the problem is so often we start with our own and then we apply it to them. And that’s where we misspeak. RV: (30:55) That is fascinating. I mean, yeah, just some of those things that you just said, like nine 11 and driver’s license. I mean, those are, you know, these like capstone moments in our life that don’t even, they’re not even on their register. So the way that we live and think is completely different from how they live and think, and it’s not that they have changed. I love what you said early on about they’re stepping into our environment. They’re not changing. It’s who they is, who they have been. Awesome. So Jason, this was like, man, I have to have been listened to this, like several times, just to pull out the part about how to do research and think about that. And then also gen Z, where do you want people to go to connect with? You obviously does economy book is coming out, you know, about this time. And so you can go find that and learn more about how we can take our personal brand and connect it to the trends that are coming with gen Z. But where should people go if they want to connect with you personally? JD: (31:56) Yeah, sure. Definitely. If you want to go check out the book, if you buy it on Amazon and you email us at [inaudible] dot com, we’ll send you all the free video courses that we put together. Denise, neither really, really good in terms of connecting with us personally, you could find me easiest way to find me is on Twitter. You can also just join our newsletter. That’s when we share all of our best research every month, you can sign up for [email protected]. And if you want to read more about the book and different things, you can go to Z economy, Z C O N O M y.com. I really look forward to connecting with everybody. You know, if people are part of your tribe, Rory you know, I I’d love to connect with them. So please feel free to reach out. RV: (32:36) Yeah, well there you have it friends. That, that is what it sounds like. And looks like when you have real data backed insights as research. Jason, thank you so much for, for this. And Kurt, you all go follow Jason, check him and Denise’s books, economy. We’ll link up to that in the show notes. Jason, we wish you the best. Thanks for being here. My man. Thank you, Rory. Congrats.

Ep 105: Get Your Foot in the Door and Kick it Down with Paula Faris | Recap Episode

RV: (00:06) welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand. I am Rory Vaden. I’m filling in for my wife and CEO. AJ Vaden. And I’m rolling solo on this recap edition, which is cool because I got a chance to meet Paula in person. You know, we spoke at the same event here recently and you know, I just, she’s a new friend. And, and so it’s cool to get a chance to introduce you to her so quickly and such a high-level performer, I mean, in terms of hosting, right? Like it doesn’t get much bigger than being a host on good morning America and the view. So I want to just share with you my three biggest takeaways, which I think are pretty clear in the interview, but I specifically want to talk about them as they relate to you as a personal brand. RV: (01:02) And I think the, you know, Paula talked about hosting, right? And that was sort of the direction that the interview went was how to be a great host. And of course, you know, as always, if you haven’t listened to the interview, go listen to it. But I think the, the biggest things that I took away from her interview are really just about you on camera in general. And so that’s my first big takeaway is to be conversational, even when your rehearsed be conversational, even when you’re hurt rehearsed. And you know, this, this thing that she was talking about, where when you go on camera, because we find that a lot of our clients are struggling with this is, is yeah. How do I, what do I say on camera? How do I, what personality am I when I turned the camera on? And yes, social media gives me the ability to like reach across the globe instantly, but I still gotta like, turn the camera on and overcome that fear. RV: (02:04) And when she said, just speak the name out loud of the one person that you’re talking to on the other side of that camera, I think that is so powerful and so useful. That is a technique we teach in our captivating content event about the secret of writing is that you don’t write to people, you write to person, you pick one person in your life and you write at that person. And she was saying the same thing on camera, which I guess I’ve never thought about so directly, but hearing her say it. And it’s interesting to write at that high of a level. That’s the kind of simple thing that they’re focused on. She’s focused on her audience. She’s focused on one person that she’s trying to serve. And there’s a good chance that if your nervous, before you get on camera, you’re not thinking about the person you’re trying to serve. RV: (03:03) You’re thinking about yourself, right? You’re thinking about is my hair out of place. Just do you know, do I look, do I look good? Do I look weird? Is my face funny? Is there something in my teeth is what I’m saying? Valuable. Like you’re so consumed. It’s so easy for us to become consumed with ourselves that we immediately disconnect and, and, and lose contact with the person on the other side of the camera. And that simple idea is the difference between everybody in the world. Like she hands wall, right? Everybody who’s consumed in the noise and the alarming majority and the few people that break through the wall, even as a host. And so I just thought that was so powerful. And it allows you to be relaxed. It allows you to be comfortable in your own skin because you’re not putting on a facade. You’re not acting, you’re not even performing. You’re not pretending you’re just serving. RV: (04:15) And if all you have to do is serve, if all you have to do is help, you’re not so freaked out about it, right? It’s like, you know, maybe this is silly analogy, but if you go into like a soup kitchen, and this is not the same thing, but just, if you think about serving at a soup kitchen, like you probably don’t care so much what you’re wearing. And do you have designer clothes on and is your car clean? And, and, you know, does everybody there know how great your job is? Like, you don’t care about any of that stuff. You’re just there to help. Like you’re just there to contribute and you’re not worried or afraid of being judged. And that is the power of being focused on your audience. And I think that’s the key to being conversational, even when it’s rehearsed. So it’s like, you’re thinking a little bit about what you’re going to say, but you’re, you’re, you’re really just being in the moment of trying to serve. RV: (05:13) And I think that’s, so that was my, my biggest thing, which is a lesson that I feel like I’ve, you know, learned, but always, and always want to be reminded of, but never had really thought of as a host. And it was just powerful for me to go, wow. The biggest hosts in the world are doing the same things that we do as speakers or that we do as authors. And to hear that from Paula was, was just really incredible. So that was the first thing. The second thing was actually what she talked about that she learned from Whoopi Goldberg, which is this idea of save it for the table, save it for the table. And what is she talking about there? Well, you know, when they would talk about topics in the pre meeting before the show of like, which topics are we going to cover once they could tell like, Oh, this is going to be heated, or this is going to be funny, or there’s a lot of energy or emotion around this topic. RV: (06:13) Let’s not talk about it now let’s save it for the camera. And I think that’s so wise and that’s, you know, obviously Whoopi Goldberg has had a very famous career. You know, I don’t know, you might have different views about what you think about her views or whatever, but like you can’t, you can’t refute that. The woman has been very successful at building a lot of reach and being in TV for a long time and movies and lots of movies and, you know so she knows something about that medium and for, for her to say something so clearly like save it for the table. Here’s how I interpreted that. And here’s how I think that applies to you. I think it’s easy to over rehearse so you can over rehearse. And what happens when you over rehearse is you lose the rawness of the emotion when you deliver it on camera, because you’re so focused on delivering what you practiced and you’re delivering from a place that you have been practicing rather than delivering from a place of just raw emotion and authenticity and what you’re feeling. RV: (07:36) And so you need to have a little bit of this rehearsal, right? So that you’re not just babbling off in a, in a random direction all the time, but you’re not saying you’re not just reciting everything verbatim that you’ve already kind of mapped out. You’re allowing the natural evolution of your emotion to come through and to portray how you’re really feeling, save it for the table, you, which, you know, in the view that meant save it for the live production, save it, save it for the TV, save it for the cameras. That’s what she’s saying. And I think the same could be true for you even as like a speaker, right? Or as, as a webinar, like I think scripts can be good to the extent that they reduce our fear and they give us an idea of what they, of what to say. But I think we can over rehearse. RV: (08:28) I think we can, we can put too much pressure on ourselves to say every single word. And it’s not that each individual word is magical. What’s magical is the raw human experience what’s magical is you and I connecting as humans. What is, is, is magical is you feeling the energy and the emotion and the enthusiasm, the power that when I give you something, this idea will change your life. This product will help. This coaching program will, will, will shift your career. And if you’re too rehearsed, you don’t have it. So save it for the table. In other words, save some of it for the camera. Don’t over rehearse. I thought that was just really, really huge and really helpful. And again, hearing it from Whoopi Goldberg or hearing it in this case, third party through Paula, that was, that was cool. I thought that was, that was pretty cool. So like you get to hang out with these people who are on national television so much just, you know, any day of the week to figure out what they think about it. So that was really good. But my favorite thing about Paula’s story was when she said, you’ve gotta be willing to kick down the door and prove yourself. RV: (10:02) You gotta be willing to kick down the door for your dream. And she’s she told a 13 year story of going from this like production assistant, earning nothing to being on, to like weaseling her way into local TV to, and even though she got on camera, she wasn’t even, she didn’t get a raise. She just had more work and more responsibility. And it was a 13 year journey to go from there to good morning America. And you know, you look at her and you go, gosh, she’s young. Cause you know, she looks young like she’s young, but you go, when you hear her story, it’s like 13 years. And this drives me bananas because people spend 18 months, 12 months, six months trying to launch a business or a personal brand. And they go, you know, it’s just not working. I’m not making money fast enough. RV: (11:07) Like none of this stuff works. I’m overwhelmed. Like I don’t get, I don’t get upset that people get discouraged, discouraged as a natural part of this. What was frustrating is how improper the expectation is about how soon you would succeed. And it’s not that I’m mad at the person that’s experiencing this. I have empathy for that person. I have been that person. I am that person I’m constantly struggling and frustrated with things. I’m trying to figure out constantly. I’m frustrated with the way that the world operates and that the messages that you’re receiving is that like, if you’re not making six figures, you know, within the first six weeks failing or that if you don’t have a million followers you’re failing, or if you don’t have a a hundred million downloads on your podcast, you’re failing. Or, you know, if you’re not fiving and are flying around in a private jet, you’re failing all of that. RV: (12:06) First of all is crap. Like in terms of you can impact one life today. And that is what matters. And the other thing is none of those people did it in six months. None of them did it in six weeks. Like, because none of them did it in six years. They did it in 10 years, in 15 years, in most cases, 20 years, 25 years. So when you’re struggling and you’re getting your face kicked in and you’re like beat up because you’ve been at this for two years and it’s like, it’s not happening for you. It is happening. Like you’re doing the right things. You gotta stay that. You gotta stay the course. The question is the challenges. Are you willing to kick down the door for your dream? Are you willing to sit there and kick and kick and kick and cut and bang and chisel and drive like, have you made the resolution like, have you actually come to the decision that no matter how long it takes your going to be successful, that’s the decision I want you to make? RV: (13:21) That’s the commitment I want you to make. That’s the place I want you to stand. I don’t want you to say, I’m willing to give this a try for six months. I’m willing to give this a try for a year. Like what is try? Like if you are a mission driven messenger, if you were called to this profession of being a personal brand, whatever that looks like for you, whether you’re in direct sales or you’re an entrepreneur, or you’re a corporate executive, or you’re, you know, more of like an influencer author, speaker information marketer, type of whatever, whatever your personal brand is about. If you have been called to do that, your life will get easier. The moment you decide that you will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes for that dream to come true, that’s it, your life will be difficult when you are living in the world of going GAF. RV: (14:25) I get results. I’ll stick with this. If I see enough likes, I’ll hang in there. And most of that happens on a subconscious level, right? Like we go for, you know, a year we go for a year and a half and we were like, gosh, it’s not working. It is working. It’s working. It takes time. It takes time to build, you know, the Dubai tower, the Burj Al Arab, like you gotta dig deep the ground before you get to, before you, you gotta build the foundation. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta lay the groundwork. And this is the truth of every story. And I just, for me, it was so cool to hear Paula, because it’s, it’s the story of a host, which is not a story that we hear that often we hear about authors. We hear about speakers, entrepreneurs, information, marketers, like all these people we have had here on the podcast. RV: (15:13) They tell them that story. But this is also for a world-class host. And it’s just the more we do these interviews, the more we meet these people, the more we share the stage with them, the more it’s like the truth of success is take the stairs. It was our first book from so many years ago now, like, it’s that simple? Have you made a decision that you’re going to kick the door down for your dream? Have you made the commitment that you’re going to do whatever it takes, as long as it takes. Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to like keep your day job or, or, or have a corporate gig and build something on the side or, you know, start small and work your way up. I mean, it means different things for different people. But if this is what you want, if this is what you feel called to do, you can do it. RV: (16:02) You can do it. I mean, particularly if it’s in the world of personal brands, like we can teach it to you. Like we’ve studied this stuff. We know how to do it. We know the truth of, you know, if there is a shortcut brand builders group, is it like, this is all we do. It’s what I’ve spent my personal life, my whole career studying. Like how do you, you build your audience and build your reach so it can be done. But the thing we can’t do for you, we can’t teach you is that commitment, that fight that hunger, that drive that desire to be scrappy and to go, you know what? I’m going to, I’m going to go for 13 years. I’m gonna do whatever it takes. I will take the hits for 13 years to get to where I want to go. So it’s like, you know what, call me after five. RV: (16:59) If it’s not like, if you’re, if it’s not working, keep doing it for five years and then call me and tell me it’s not working because it is working. It is working. You are building the foundation, but nobody sees the foundation, right? When you drive around the neighborhood, you’re like, wow, that house flew up. No, it didn’t. They spent, they spent a year doing permits. And then once they got permits and saving money and then finding their architect and their builder, and then, and then they got the plans and then they finally started digging and then they laid the foundation and then they had problems and then it rained. And then dah, dah, dah, and then one day you’re driving by. And you’re like, Whoa, look at that whole thing is framed and flew up. Where did that come from? The same is true for you. So just decide, decide that your dream matters, decide that you’re willing to kick down the door. RV: (17:51) Because if you feel that calling on your heart, we believe that it is there for a reason that it was divinely placed in you, which means you can’t fail. You can’t lose. As long as you keep serving and you keep fighting and you keep going. So do that and keep coming back here, hanging out with us and the influential personal brand podcast in Kali. As soon as you can, if you’re not already get into our coaching program, let us talk to you every month, come to our events. We can help you. We can help you reduce the pain. And I hope I get to see you there. If not hang out here as long as you have to, we love you. And you know, hopefully we get to meet you, but in the meantime, just keep kicking butt and helping people. We’ll get you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 104: Get Your Foot in the Door and Kick it Down with Paula Faris

Speaker 1: (00:05) [Inaudible] RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming from anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call, hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:02) So you’re listening and probably your dream at some point in your life as a personal brand is to like be on good morning America or be on the View, or you know, this America this morning. And you’re about to meet the host. One of the hosts and Emmy award winning journalist, a new friend of mine, Paula Faris. She was a co-anchor of good morning America weekend. And she was also the cohost of the view for like three years. She has been on world news now and anyways, she’s awesome. And I met her at the global leadership summit. She was another one of the speakers, totally connected with her. She has a new book that’s called, Called Out, which we’ll talk a little bit about, but I thought you had to hear her story about how she got to where she is. Some of the things that we can steal from her and learn in terms of some of her skills. And then also hear a little bit about her new book and why she wrote that. So anyways, Paula, welcome to the show. I’m the interviewer and you’re the guest. PF: (02:12) It feels kind of awkward, but you buried the lead, which is one thing that you don’t want to do in broadcast journalism. Don’t bury the lead. You forgot to mention that I am the global leadership summit, cornhole champ in some capacities, because if Rory just mentioned that we met at the global leadership summit in Chicago, what he failed to mention was that I schooled him in Cornwall and if you’re familiar with unfamiliar with cornhole, some people call it what what’s bags, which I don’t understand that, but I have to say you were really gracious in defeat though. So RV: (02:54) As long as you want, cause we’re going to edit this entire section out. So just let me know when you’re done. PF: (03:00) I’m done. I’m done. RV: (03:03) Yeah. Well, you, weren’t the only person who embarrassed me. There’s a great video of Sadie Robertson Sadie, Huff destroying me as well. So, you know, I wouldn’t, yes, it’s true. It is true. But I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t take too much pride in it. You weren’t, I’m not like a formidable foe. PF: (03:22) Oh, well, I, listen, I think there’s plenty of room for growth there. RV: (03:27) Definitely. Definitely. Well, so I, I just thought, you know, it was really cool because you got at GLS, you, you were, you got, I got to see you kind of in both roles, like you were kind of doing the hosting kind of MC thing. And then you were also speaking about the, about the new book, but I, you know, short of just thinking you’re awesome and you know, me and AJ kind of connecting with you and your daughter and just like that whole thing, I really thought, wow, this is a rare opportunity to learn about hosting because I think like a lot of our clients and even myself, my dream was to be a speaker. Like I wanted to be a speaker and there’s a lot of people who talk about that and then there’s like writing and then there’s social media, but more and more like to me, the podcast medium is the most rabid fan base that we had at our former company. RV: (04:25) And it’s still the most rabid fan base of email and social and book readers and people who see me even speak live. Our podcast listeners are, they are there week in and week out. And yet nobody talks about how to be a great host. Like where do you go to, to learn this? So I really just want to hear, like, how did you even get started and, and how did it become, how do you become an, an a co-anchor of good morning America? Like, or the view, like how do you get to that level? So just, you know, tell us a little bit about that. PF: (04:59) Sure. Well, I didn’t grow up thinking that I wanted to be a broadcaster. It just kind of happened. My high school drama teacher, his name was mr. Barsoon, and he would, he would continually cast me as the narrator of our school productions. And of course I thought I was like a leading lady and he thought otherwise, so he cast me as the narrator and I actually really loved the role because you’re telling the story and you’re really setting the stage and setting the tone. And he’s the one when I was kind of floundering in my junior year in high school, I said, I don’t really know what I want to go to college for. He said, you should consider broadcasting because he knew who I was inherently. I’ve always been innately, curious my nickname growing up, Rory was Paula 20 questions. So I’ve always been innately curious. PF: (05:59) I love to ask questions. I like to champion and challenge people. He knew that about me. And then coupled with the fact that I can tell a good story would be my intonations and connecting with people the way that I narrated the school productions. So he, that was honestly the first time I thought about going into broadcasting. And so I did, I went to college for it, but I, instead of pursuing on air, I pursued off-air. So I was producing, editing and writing because I wasn’t confident in who I was. I was so scared of failure. And, you know, fear is one of those. It’s one of those tenants that has gripped me throughout my life and paralyzed me from taking the next step. And so fear for a long time, paralyzed me from really pursuing, being on camera, because I thought I wouldn’t have the words to say, even though I had people speaking life into it, I had my college professors, I had my high school drama teacher. PF: (06:56) I had people around me saying that this is what you’re inherently good at, and you’re comfortable on camera. I didn’t believe in myself. And it wasn’t until nine 11. When I was working in radio sales when nine 11 happened, I was so gripped by the coverage and the ability of these broadcasters and hosts to just unite the country through tragedy and the way that they were able to tell a story and tell it sensitively, with dignity through pain. I was, I really felt like that was the first time I accepted that dream for me, that that was the first time that I accepted the dream that other people had for me, because I, I said, okay, I’m going to step into my fear. And so I applied, I quit my job in radio sales. I was making killer money for a 25 year old. PF: (07:46) I was making like 50, $60,000 a year. We’re talking, you know, nine 11. So 2001, I quit my job. And I said, I’ve got to get back into broadcast. I’m going to pursue this. I’ve got to stop allowing fear to grip, to grip me. And I applied at the local television stations in one station called me back. And he said that he wanted to bring me in for an interview to be a production assistant. I was going to make seven Carolina are in Dayton, Ohio at the time I was in Dayton, Ohio. And I got hired to be a production assistant, making seven bucks an hour. And I had told him, in the initial interview, I said, I eventually want to report. I know that Dayton is a large market. I doubt it’s going to happen here. And he said, yeah, it’s not going to happen here. PF: (08:33) But unbeknownst to him in my downtime, I was borrowing the camera equipment battery pack the tripod from the guys in the sports department on my downtime. I’ve put together a tape. I shot my own standups, which if you’ve never worked in television or worked with a video recorder or of any sort, and you know, it’s hard to shoot your own standups. I had nobody helping me shot my own interview is all my highlight, but edited it. I handed it to the news director and I said, I just want you to take a look at this. His name was Ian Rubin. I said, Ian, if you could just take a look at this and give me some constructive feedback, I didn’t anticipate him to put me on the air at all. I just was literally trying to get some feedback. And he took a look at it and said, you did this by yourself. I said, yeah, I shot it. I edited it. And that’s where my production my production, RV: (09:19) You stole the equipment, right? So he was, I’m sure he was impressed by that. PF: (09:24) Yeah. I stole equipment yeah. RV: (09:30) Resources at the office too. PF: (09:32) I, my downtime, I, my downtime, but he asked me to make another tape for him, a resume reel as we would call it. And I was in the midst of making that and he decided to put me on the air. And that was that I had worked in Dayton, Ohio, that I worked in Cincinnati, Ohio for three years. And then I moved up at the chain to Chicago, which is the number three television market. And then nine years ago, I got the call from the network, which is the pinnacle. It’s like getting a coaching job in the NFL. Okay. You started PV leagues and you moved your way up. I got a job at ABC news and they wanted me to anchor their overnight newscast. And I was like, you have an overnight newscast. So I, I initially went to ABC nine years ago with my family, two little kids. We moved from Chicago to New York. And I anchored the overnight news. I worked third shift. I did that for a year. Then they promoted me and then they promoted me again to good morning, America weekend anchor. And then they promoted me again to, you know, cohost of the video. So it happened quite quickly, but it was through a lot of hard work and tenacity to get promoted RV: (10:41) When they tell me. So like, when did you, what year is it that you get on in Dayton? And then what year do you get to ABC overnight and then good morning America. And then the view PF: (10:51) 2001 is when I was on the air in Dayton, Ohio. RV: (10:56) Okay. So you went from seven bucks an hour, PF: (10:59) 2001 to 2002 was my first like was in Dayton, Ohio. But I, by the way, when you put me on the air in Dayton, I still didn’t get a pay raise. So I was still making seven bucks an hour, but that’s why I say, take the opportunity, get your foot in the door and kick it down. Don’t wait for the opportunity to come to you. And that’s what I tell a lot of young kids. They’re like, well, I don’t want to take this, take it and prove yourself. And you make it what you want because no one, he didn’t tell me that interview. You know, if you want to report, you can borrow the equipment. Like you, you have to take your, and you have to take the initiative and you have to dream for yourself and you have to be tenacious and be persistent. Nobody told me that that was a possibility, but I just, I wanted to go for it. RV: (11:43) Yeah. And I just, I mean, when you go like, Hey, I’m going to be on TV. And it’s like, woo, you’re making seven bucks an hour. Like get excited. Like what could feel further away? Like the national network morning show, like you couldn’t possibly feel the further away than seven bucks an hour. And so then when do you get to New York? When do you go to ABC? PF: (12:05) I went to New York in the end of 2011. So 10 years later and that I good morning, America happened in August of 2014. And I anchored that show for four years until September of 2018 and write about it. I got burnt out. RV: (12:22) Yeah. But that was, so that was a, still a 13 year. I mean, that was a 13 year journey as, as a host, which I think that’s, that’s really powerful to see, like even that’s fast. But it’s third. It’s still 13 years from dream to reality. And I think there’s a lot of people that go, Hey, I’m going to start, I’m going to start an Instagram account today. And I hope to be making six figures within two months. And then if it doesn’t happen, it’s like, Oh, I suck. And it’s like not, it does not really. RV: (12:52) So what about, can we talk about the hosting part? RV: (12:58) What do you think is the difference between a good host and a great host? PF: (13:07) Their ability to connect that? I think that’s, if I’m watching the news or I’m watching a show and I feel like that person is speaking, isn’t speaking to me, they’re speaking. Or speaking at me, they’re speaking to me and speaking with me, if they’ve made me part of the conversation, if they’ve invited me into the conversation and invited me into the environment, then I feel like that’s a connection because so often, you know, we’re so polished and, it’s funny because my sister is getting ready to start a YouTube channel. And her husband started a YouTube channel and I’m looking at their videos and I’m like, guys, you need to be more conversational. And it sounds so simple, but it’s so true because if you’re too stiff and too polished, you’re speaking at people, you don’t want to speak at people. You want to, the only way you invite them into the conversation is by being conversational. PF: (14:10) Okay. Well, looking into the lens and pretend, I always say, pretend like you’re talking to one of your closest friends, somebody that you let your guard down around. And I asked, I encourage my sister to do this one exercise. I said, I want you at the very beginning to verbally say your best friend’s name or your husband’s name at the end of the, at the end of the sentence. So whatever she might be saying, she’d be like, so today drew, I want to tell you about this really cool thing I want to do. So you’re, you’re injecting that person’s name into, into what you’re articulating. And then you take a step back and then you’re just thinking that person’s name, and then you’re seeing their face. But what you’re doing is you’re, you’re, you’re creating a conversation, you’re being conversational and you’re inviting people and you have a conversational tone, right? PF: (15:02) So I think connecting with people and you connect with them by being conversational. Because when you’re, when you’re speaking, you really only have one path. If you’re reading something, you know how many times they say you have to read it X amount of times in order to absorb it. But that’s why it’s so important. You have one shot when you’re speaking and you have to be incredibly engaging and incredibly conversational. And not that you’re dumbing it down by any stretch of the imagination, but just connecting on a level where you’re being extremely conversational, I think is the most important thing. And I think that’s where people have felt like they’ve connected with me and they feel like I’m authentic. If you can also be authentic within that conversation. I think that’s a, that’s a win, win combination. RV: (15:52) Were you always conversational as a host or did it, did you develop, was it intentional? Was it accidental? Like how did you like that exercise is awesome, but how, which I, I think that’s killer like of going, Hey, pretend you’re actually talking in real life. Like there is a one person on the other side of the camera and saying their name as powerful. Is that, is that something you had to develop consciously? PF: (16:16) Totally. I think, I mean, I, I think there are certain aspects that you’re born with it or you’re not, but I think it’s definitely something that I had. It’s a skill I had inherently a little bit of, but I had to grow it and the way that I had to grow it was just, you know, if you look at some of my early work, it’s awful, it’s not great. But I, you know, I think I was trying too hard. Sometimes we try way too hard to be funny, or we’re just trying too hard in general. And I, I think just the more relaxed I got weirdly, it, it’s not like I cared less, but it was just the more relaxed I got and the more comfortable I was, some of that came with experience. But some of that just came with being confident in my own skin and being confident about what I was talking about and confident about the topic. I think if you’re not prepared, you won’t be confident and you’re, and you will be conversational and you can, or your ability to connect is based upon whether or not you’re prepared. That’s one of my big fears is not being prepared. RV: (17:25) Yeah. But, okay. So let’s talk about the preparation thing, because how much of hosting is like on a teleprompter versus like you’re talking about being conversational, but some of it is on a teleprompter, isn’t it? PF: (17:43) It’s very tough. And that’s the thing I was when I first, when I had my first gig in Dayton, Ohio everything, when I was anchoring, I would what we say. And I don’t want to get too deep in the, in, you know, in the weeds with television speak, but you know, you’d be on cam and you’d say, here’s my role, acute a video. And I would just give them a roll cue to VO. So we’d come back on cam and that you’re on camera. Like, Hey, tonight, the Dayton dragons are playing then blah, blah, blah. And you’ll never guess who showed up and who showed up with that’s in the prompter would be my role cue to VO. Okay. So VO means voiceover. So that means when we go to tape and I’m voicing over the highlights. When I first started, I would just say roll cue to VO, and I would ad lib everything. PF: (18:29) I would ad lib the highlights cause I started doing sports. That’s how I really cut my teeth in television. And when I was out in the field reporting, you don’t have a teleprompter out in the field either. So I’m learning probably a little differently than, than a lot of people, a lot of my other peers and colleagues. And just cause that’s the way that I was trained in our sports department. So the challenge is, is when you have a teleprompter, it can. And I feel like in sports, sports anchors are usually really good at their job because they’re, they can, they’re quick on their feet. They can improvise and they can tap dance and they can talk around things. And they’re, you know, they’re, that’s just, that’s the sort of situation that they’re used to. They’re used to add living highlights and ad libbing stories, whereas a news it’s much more produced. PF: (19:23) And so when I came from sports to news, because when I, when I was in Chicago, Dayton, Cincinnati, and Chicago, I did sports. And then I decided to do news, which is one of the reasons I took the job at ABC because they wanted to give me an opportunity to kind of get my news leg, my news, sea legs, because I’d done sports for so long. And everything’s very scripted and it’s, it’s challenging because it’s hard to have that conversational tone when, when everything has been scripted for you. So, but there have been moments where the teleprompter has died and I’m like, finally, you know that this is, I mean, this is, this is how I, this is how I was trained. This is probably where I’m most comfortable. But it is a mix if you’re in the field and you see a reporter out in the field, like in front of the white house or in front of a stadium, there’s no, there’s typically no teleprompter for any of that. That’s just all off the cuff. But if you’re in studio, most of the time there is a teleprompter and I hate teleprompters because I just think they become a crutch and you just, and they take that conversational tone, which I think is so imperative to the connectivity. They remove that from the situation. RV: (20:33) Now what about like on the V on the view? Oh, that’s not a teller. PF: (20:38) No, that’s like, no, there’s no teleprompter. There, there might be a teleprompter for sponsored segments, but no, that’s all off the cuff and it’s, it’s, it can be a little, it’s very nerve wracking because you’re not really sure what everybody’s going to say. Whoopi Goldberg, I love Whitney. And she would always say, you know, we would have the hot topics meeting in the morning. We would show up at, I think our meetings were at eight 30. Yeah, eight 30. And then the show was 11 o’clock Eastern. And so we would have the hot topics meeting and we get this huge packet. And most of the times we didn’t get it the night before, but then it was revised by morning. And you just, we pick out the stories that we want to talk about that day. And based upon our fire and our passion for the stories, the producers are then pick the stories that we are gonna do for the show. PF: (21:31) Right. And what we are going to cover. We didn’t. And if we got a little too heated in the hot topics meeting at eight 30, what we would say, save it for the table. So she didn’t want us to totally go there cause she didn’t want, she wanted him so much of and kudos to her. She wanted so much of it to wait for the table for the hot topics table so that we didn’t know where we didn’t know what the other person was going to say. Cause it keeps you on edge and it keeps the conversation like really fiery. So that was a situation where it would, we would say, yeah, let’s not, don’t give too much of it away. Save it for the table. RV: (22:10) Yeah. So you went from like totally impromptu to totally scripted to all the way back to like completely impromptu. PF: (22:18) Yes. Like sitting on the edge of my seat and not sure what the hell was going to happen. It’s very, it can be scary. And for a journalist, you know, and I, I had the added pressure. I was still, when I was doing the view, I was still anchoring good morning, America weekends. So I was still a journalist and I, I didn’t want to say anything that was going to foil my news career. Cause I, my number one objective was to stay neutral on, to stay objective and really kind of like tip toe around a lot of the political talk because when I was first hired, this is pre-Trump this isn’t, you know, he, he was just throwing his name into the hat and the primaries and you know, and then he became a nominee and then, and then he became president and then it became a really political show. PF: (23:03) And but it was tough for me cause I was given explicit directions by my bosses on the news side, ABC news that I couldn’t give political opinions because of, because I was a journalist and still anchoring one of their flagship shows. So when it became a new, a strictly, when it became very political, the show, it was really uncomfortable for me. And I felt like I couldn’t go there and I felt like I couldn’t give the audience what they really, really wanted. And that was probably one of the first times that I felt like I felt like a failure in many regards because I wasn’t able to connect with the audience because the audience it’s called the view for a reason. They want you to give your opinions and give you our muse. And I would give my opinion and views on most everything except for abortion and politics. And that’s really the, that the show started turning towards when it became political. It was really uncomfortable. RV: (24:03) You think this translates pretty directly for a podcast host. I mean like, or a YouTube, like a YouTube channel. Like if you’re not, do you think this con this topic, these kind of lessons, do you think they apply to just somebody with a Mike? You know, like me, right. I mean, is it going, is it the same? Is it the same idea? Whether it’s, you know, national television or it’s a local podcast? The idea is just to connect is to connect honestly with the audience. And that is the most important thing. PF: (24:34) Absolutely. I think that is a, that’s the baseline, that’s the foundation of everything. And you can do that through a myriad of ways. Like the way that you were able to connect with me early on, like kind of telling a joke and cornhole RV: (24:48) Part of my strategy. So we were already connected, PF: (24:52) But you put me at ease as a host. I will tell you, put me at ease because you have done your research on me. And I, I detected that just from what you, the way that you introduced me. And for me, if I’m doing a big interview with someone and I haven’t read their book and that’s why I’m sitting down with them, or if I haven’t done my homework they’re going to know that, okay. So what you do is I always say it’s so important to do your research on whomever you’re interviewing whoever you’re sitting down with, whether you’re hosting a podcast or you’re conducting an interview, do your homework. It’s so important to put the other person at ease and you don’t have to, like, you can just, you don’t have to say, Oh, I read your book. And it’s amazing. You can just say, yeah, I read this. PF: (25:36) I, you know, I remember this one line in your book and you said this and that to them triggers, Oh my gosh, they took the time to read the book or they took the time to do some research on me. And it’s just one book to open the book, but you’ll see that other person guard kind of come down and like, and I can open up to you now because you have put me at ease and you’ve made me feel comfortable. And you showed me that you care enough about this interview, that you’ve done a little bit of homework, but if you haven’t done any homework and haven’t done any research, then the way that I interpret that as the person that’s being interviewed is that you don’t care. And if you don’t care, then why should I care? Why should I open up? RV: (26:19) Interesting. All right. So last little part here, why’d you leave 13 years. You’re like at the top of your game, you’re at two, I mean, literally two of the biggest shows PF: (26:31) More than 30 years. More than that. RV: (26:33) Oh yeah. It was 13 to get there. And then you were like, you were at the peak, you were like doing the thing here for five, six years. And then all of a sudden you made a decision to leave. PF: (26:44) Yeah. I made a session, a decision to step away to pump the brakes at the height of my career, which I thought was totally insane. And, but I was burnout. And I think what I was doing for so long as I was chasing these accolades and achievements, and it never seemed to satiate and I became addicted to this thing. And so often we misplace our significance in something that shifts like a job or your bank account. And for me, I had misplaced my significance in something that shifted and I was at a professional high, but it was at what cost, what good is it for a man to gain the world, but to lose his soul? And I just, it came for me, it came at too high of a cost. I, my relationships with my, with my kids and husband were really not doing well and I wasn’t going to church. PF: (27:34) My health started suffering and I thought, okay, I don’t think I was called to do this. If this is what it was going to cost. And I don’t think everybody is called to walk away or to blow it up, you know, for all intents and purposes. But for me, I really felt like, and I’m a person of deep faith. I really felt God called me out of that space where I was addicted to what I did. I was really scared to walk away cause I was scared. I was like, I built this career. I don’t want to just disappear into the ether. I was scared of being irrelevant. I was scared of what people would think of me. I didn’t know what was on the other side. I just knew I needed to get my life back because I was working crazy hours and I wasn’t seeing my husband and kids. PF: (28:21) And the things that I said were of value to me, Rory, you wouldn’t have known those based upon the choices that I was making professionally and personally. So I didn’t really truly walk away until I went through a really tough season. Like a season that a lot of us are going through right now with the pandemic. But my personal hell happened in seven months and I had a miscarriage with an emergency surgery. Then I got hit in the head before a live shot for good morning America. Some kid threw an object at my head, 60 miles an hour, had a concussion. The day I was cleared to go back to work, I was out of work because of that incident for three weeks. And the day I was cleared to go back to work, I get in a head on car crash and then I got influenza and then I got pneumonia and that was seven months. PF: (29:07) So I knew at that point, it wasn’t just a string of bad luck. That was, God’s saying, you need to slow down. You need to find out who you are because you have, you have wrapped up your entire identity in this, but it wasn’t until I stepped. And it was after that season of how I decided I needed to slow down and walk into this space where, you know, I told my bosses, they were gracious enough to kind of like, you know, they said, well, we want you to stay here. We’ll let you work Monday through Friday. And you can walk away from the view and from good morning, America weekend. And you know, he can be a correspondent and I asked them to a faith podcast, but I’m still kind of figuring it out. I knew I just needed to get my life back, but they were gracious enough to let me do that. PF: (29:47) And but it was scary cause it was, I write much of the book in that space where I walk away from these two things that I didn’t realize that defined me and they had, and I had no clue who I was outside of them. I didn’t, I didn’t know myself anymore because I was Paula Ferris, the anchor of good morning America and coasted a view. And then all of a sudden I wasn’t, and I, I didn’t know how to process that. And so I read a lot of the book about finding out, like, who are we outside of what we do outside of the things that we place our significance in. And there’s nothing wrong with loving what you do, but how do you find that balance between loving what you do and not being defined by what you do? And so that’s what much of the book was for me finding out the parts of me that won’t change in a pandemic and the parts of me and so who I am and that won’t change in a personal crisis, just digging into that because our society tells us to lean in and to find our calling and it’s always career related. PF: (30:44) And we do when we press in and guess what career will change at some point in our lives. And if we, you know, status on Instagram will change, our bank accounts will change. And if we placed our significance in those things that are going to shift, and we’re not going to know who we are outside of them. So it’s so important to find your true purpose outside of doing, to find to discover that personal mission statement, but to find the parts of you that won’t like, what parts of you won’t change. I’m in a crisis for me, I would have said, I’m Paula Ferris. I’m the anchor of good morning America and the view. And, and when that changed, I had to figure out what my mission statement was. And now it’s my purpose statement. I just say, I’m Paula Ferris. I love Jesus. PF: (31:28) I am a wife, I’m a mom. I’m curious, I ask lots of questions and I like to champion and challenge people. And so those, those, you know, championing people and being curious and question, asking a lot of questions. Those made me an effective communicator and made me an effective broadcaster. But those things aren’t going to change the way that I, that I go about manifesting them will weather through it’s a broad broadcast capacity or through another capacity. So that was really important for me to, you know, to figure out and when I wrote the book, RV: (32:01) Wow, well, the book is called, called out. And of course you can get it anywhere. Great books are sold. Don’t go looking for it. Wherever crappy books are sold, you won’t find it there. Where do you want people to go Paula, to connect with you? Or if they want to link up, I mean, obviously Instagram and all that kind of stuff, but where would you point people? PF: (32:24) You know, I, I developed this gift of telepathy during the Panasonic. So people can just reach out to me through their minds if they want. I know I don’t know what happened, but Instagram’s probably the best place to reach me. And it’s Paula Ferris. My last name is spelled just like the city of Paris with an act like Frank, Paula Ferris. So, and pick up the book, support it. I really appreciate it. Let me know how, how how you connect with it. And it’s just been great to see, to hear from people and say, Oh my gosh, I feel like you were writing my story men and women indiscriminately. So yeah, reach out to me. I’d love to hear from you. RV: (33:10) Yeah. I love this. I mean if, if you’ve ever had a struggle with identity, which is all of us, particularly those of us with personal brands is separating that, you know, what we want to be seen as, from who, you know, online or wherever, but we really are. This is a really, really key discussion from someone who was at the top of her game and left that all behind. So we’ll link up to called out. We’ll obviously AIG and I’ll do the debrief of this on the next episode, you can check it out, but follow Paula and connect with her. It’ll be interesting to see how she reinvents herself, but in this next phase. And thank you so much for being with PF: (33:53) My pleasure. And I can’t wait for that. That redemptive game of Cornwall, RV: (34:01) I don’t know what you’re talking about. We edited out that PF: (34:04) I beat him at [inaudible].

Ep 103: One Core Message with Dan Miller | Recap Episode

RV: (00:00) Hey, welcome to this special recap edition of the influential personal brand. We’re breaking down the interview today with our longtime friend, Dan Miller, who I absolutely just love. I just love his energy, him and Joanne are awesome. And we met them on a cruise a few years ago and I’ve just been, been friends. So we got your top three takeaways from AJ and from me. So, get us going. AJV: (00:32) Yeah, I think the first thing he said this like really close to the beginning of the interview and I loved it. And he said if somebody or three different people ask me the same question more than three times, I’ll just make a product for it. I think the whole concept of what should I make a product about or where do I find content is really simply answered when you just figure out what do people already come to you for? And so instead of repeating the exact same thing over and over and over again, why not turn it into a product, a course or a video series or a book or a coaching program or certification or all the things that he has done and is doing really, he said most of that comes from just, you know, if I get asked the same question more than three times, then I really consider turning that into a product. RV: (01:24) Yep. I love that. I was one of my takeaways too, is just, you know, the power of listening to your audience. And I think one of the, one of the techniques or strategies that you can use is to ask your audience. So in his case, he’s just listening. But the other thing you can do, like if you need content ideas or you need product ideas, or if you need copy for like your sales page, send a survey to your audience, ask them some questions about what they want and what they’re struggling with, and then take their words that they write back to you and use some of their language in CRE in actually marketing what you’re doing and create a product for them. So that was one of my takeaways too. I just love that. It’s such a simple, a simple, practical, actionable thing that any of us can do, you know, right away. So that was good. So what was your second one AJV: (02:17) Second one was this concept of not doing the new and trendy thing that everyone is doing. And he said, I’ll try to recap it here. He said, but I, I resist the temptation to do every single new and trendy thing that is out there. And he talked about, he said, could I be missing out on lots of money? Maybe do I care? Not really. And I think that’s really just really powerful. It’s like, if what you’re doing is working, why would you derail? What’s working to do just what everyone else is doing. That’s new and trendy. And one of the things that I thought was really insightful and something that you don’t hear a lot about, he said, now I’m not saying anything is wrong with funnels or webinars or with anything he said, but you hear all these people all over social media promoting, I made six figures, seven figures in this launch. AJV: (03:10) He said, what you don’t hear about is how much money they had to give back and refunds. And I thought that was really interesting because you hear a ton of people. You see a ton of ads. It’s like how I made six figures in this funnel, or there’s this one out. And I don’t, I won’t say what it’s called, but it’s how do you have a seven figure funnel? And then he talks about how he came up with this whole thing. And yeah, probably you could do that. I’m sure people are doing that all the time every day. And Dan said, but what you don’t hear about is how much of that they’re actually giving back in refunds because a buyer’s remorse or they didn’t get what they thought it was, or it was a little bit misleading or a little bit of a bait and switch. And I’m not saying everyone is but I do think there’s some accuracy in the fact that you hear a lot of the revenue promoted and that a lot of the backend of what was it even profitable and how much did you actually give back and refunds? And I thought that was just very insightful. RV: (04:09) Yeah. I mean, you got the refunds, you also have affiliate fees and, you know, Facebook ads and paying your graphic designer. And, you know, at the end of the day, it’s like, how, how much do you really keep in? Which is but I think his thing into your point is more about the reputation and like the, AJV: (04:26) Oh yeah, no, I love when he said, he said it, he said, I’m way more about building a consistent audience than having huge infusions of cash said, I’m way more about the consistency time, over time, over time, that will last me 20 years than I am about this one time, big infusion of of cash. And everyone is different. Perhaps you are someone who’s looking for that big infusion of cash and like go for it, do it. But I loved what he said. It’s about playing the long game and making this a, a true, a true business versus this one time push. RV: (05:00) Yeah. So for me, the other thing that I thought was fascinating you know, we teach something to our brand new members that we call the fast cash formula, which is how do you, if you need to make money quickly. And we talk about how coaching a lot of times is the fastest way. If you need to replace an income is to offer coaching. And when he was telling his story, that was how he started. And still to this day, he does one day a month of one-on-one coaching work. And I love that because he was a real life example of what we talk about that, you know, coaching is the fastest path to cash in terms of replacing a large you know, income need, but it’s the least scalable longterm. And, and yet, so he sort of toward the story about how he started with that. RV: (05:51) And then after he had done enough coaching, he created a course for the people who couldn’t afford coaching. And, and so he was teaching this course and then people invited him to come speak because there were people seeing him teach the course. And that, you know, basically out of that coaching work came his content which became also his business model. And I just think that’s a really great way to do it is to do the work, to kind of get your hands in there. And obviously we love coaching. We, we believe in coaching in the power of one-on-one and I just, I just thought that was really encouraging. And, and, you know, he, he does have multiple streams of income, but it’s been developed over years and it’s, it really started from one great body of work, you know, that he flushed out with coaching and real life scenarios then applied it to a course, you know, then applied it to live events and speaking. So I thought that was just a great, a great example. AJV: (06:51) Yeah. There’s a great evolution of evolution. That’s a great one. And I think that’s somewhat similar to my third and final point, which is which I thought is very indicative of what you hear a lot. But yet there’s this mystery around it. He said, but I don’t count on any income from my books. And, you know, in his book is super successful and has been out there, just did a 20 year edition, right? 20Th year, RV: (07:18) 20Th or 25th. AJV: (07:20) Yeah. But a long time, right on. He said, but here’s what I have found. He said, it’s not the book itself that makes all the income, it’s the actual content within the book. So the book is the calling card. It’s the credibility source. Then not to say that you won’t make income. He just doesn’t count on that in his forecast or his budget. But it’s the content of that book that he then takes that and turns it into all these different curriculums. It’s a coaching curriculum. It’s a certification curriculum. It’s a course, it’s a video series, it’s a live event. It’s all these different things that are all circulated around the content of the book. And the book is at the center, but probably isn’t, what’s bringing in the most income for him. However, from that, there is just this entire huge circle of all these things that are moving to make this very successful, a very healthy business, even though most of the income is not from the center of it, which is the book it’s from all these other ancillary income streams that have become his primary revenue. RV: (08:27) Yeah. That’s good, good perspective on the book. For me, my third takeaway, which he talked a little bit about, but it’s more of, of what we know about him and Joanne behind the scenes. And I don’t know that he said this directly, but every time I’m with Dan and Joanne, it always occurs to me how they build their life or, or they build work around their life. They don’t build their life around their work. And so it’s, it’s one of the great possibilities of a personal brand is to be able to like fit work in and around your life. And it’s hard to do cause when you’re an entrepreneur, especially early on, it’s like a lot of times, you know, we’re kind of his life, but you, you want to get out of that and you can get out of that. And AJV: (09:14) I think that goes to a lot of what he talked about, where he resists the temptation to do all of the new and trendy things. Because, well, for what reason, it’s like, are you living to work? Are you working to live? And he talked a lot about his time and his schedule, but I think that is a part of it is resisting the temptation to do. RV: (09:34) Yeah. And I, and I hope for you, like, w w I wonder, I would bet if we could take all the podcast listeners and ask if you’ve heard of Dan Miller, I bet less than half of you have actually heard of him. You’ve probably heard of some of our other guests yet. He has one of the biggest businesses of everyone we’ve ever had on the podcast. And, and his example speaks to the power of steady consistency and just trust and playing the long game and plodding along. He’s the tortoise man. That’s a, that’s such a great that’s a great metaphor. And, and, and we mean that AJV: (10:14) It was his, he said, he said, I’m the tortoise. RV: (10:18) Yeah. That’s. And, and that is, you know, and we say that in the most honoring way, AJV: (10:23) He said it so we can say it. RV: (10:26) But even to that extent, it doesn’t mean you have to be slow. It’s just, it’s the idea of consistency. You don’t have to be the person with a million followers. And, and you know, this, these huge extravagant launches and given away cars, and like, you can do those things like, but, but you don’t have to be that person in order to be successful. Like you can just do the right thing for a really long time, and it will work out like you can’t fail if you just pour back into people’s lives. So I’m as encouraged by that. AJV: (11:01) Yeah. Well, I think it just, in general, there are a million different ways to build your personal brand. And Dan gives a one, one really great perspective of how to do it. And there are many other different perspectives that you will hear from other guests, but to what Roy is saying, it’s like, it’s, it’s all about. And what we talk about a lot, it’s playing the long game and Dan is a great example of the long game. RV: (11:26) Yeah. So there you have it. So hopefully you’re playing the long game and you’ll keep coming back here. We’re going to keep working to provide amazing guests for you and hopefully useful insights. We’re so glad that you’re here. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 102: One Core Message with Dan Miller

Speaker 1: (00:06) [Inaudible] RV: (00:06) Over the years, I would say it’s been delightful and inspiring to get to know Dan and Joanne Miller. Dan was one of the very first mentors I sat down with when we moved to Nashville now 10 years ago. And I reached out to him because I heard of him and knew of his, his influence. And he’s the New York times bestselling author of a book called 48 days to the work you love, which just released the 20th anniversary hardcover edition, which is pretty amazing. That book has been in hard cover and still so successful after all these years. He’s also written other books. No no more dreaded Mondays wisdom meets passion. He’s been on CBS early show hardball with Chris Matthews. He’s been on the Dave Ramsey show. He’s spoken at the white house and, you know, he, he has a huge podcast. RV: (00:57) It’s usually like in the top two, three, five, every, every single week for careers under career podcasts on iTunes. And he’s just built an amazing community, the 48 days Eagles dot com. It’s like a community and he’s, they’ve built a business out of it. It’s given them an amazing lifestyle. And I just wanted to give you a chance to meet Dan and hear some of his philosophies about how they’ve done it and the behind the scenes journey, because I, I think of him and, and Joanne of just having more than prosperity, having peace and joy and happiness and just as well as profound impact in addition to money and influence that I think a lot of us aspire to. So anyways, Dan, thanks for making some time for us. Thanks was looking forward to, this has been too long since we had a conversation is going to be awesome. RV: (01:53) Yeah. And I, you know, the other times I’ve interviewed you for like, you know, our other old podcasts and stuff was really kind of about your work. And I, I feel like I kind of called in a favor to say, Hey, would you talk to us today more about, less about your expertise? Kind of, although there’s a lot of overlap and more about how did you become, you know, what you are today? Cause you were a personal brand long before personal branding was ever a term like you were building a digital community long before that was ever popular. And so can you just tell us, like, how did you get, how did you get started? You know, this is before social media was really around and like, this is before all of this, you know, what we know today is are the, the essential tenants of a personal brand. You were doing it long, long before. So can you talk to us about that a little bit? DM: (02:47) Absolutely. Yeah. And I was around doing things, building the business before we had hogs podcast and Instagram and Facebook and Pinterest and all those things. It can Be done. Those are just tools and we’re thankful for them, but I started what I’m doing today as a Sunday school class at our church in Nashville. And it was just a class on career life transition. A lot of people were going through unexpected unwelcomed, kind of transitions. And church asked me if I would do that. My academic background is in clinical psychology. I said, sure. Now the interesting thing about that is that I expected to have the 22 year old had just lost his job at burger King, you know, show up in frustrated, what do I do next? We had a few of those. We also had dentists physicians, attorneys, pastors, engineers, accountants, who showed up and said, everybody sees me as successful and I’m doing okay, but I don’t think this is it. So it was that kind of board that I don’t think I’m on track that was so such an obvious need and an immense need caused me to move into this space. DM: (03:58) Well, I didn’t anticipate originally this being a business. I mean, I’m an entrepreneur. I can go make money in a lot of ways. I’m a sales guy, but this was so explosive that finally with Joanne, my wife’s insistence, if I was going to spend so much time in this, that ought to have something to do with our income, that I started looking at opportunities. There put together a real rudimentary form of my Sunday school notes in the three ring binder. And we started selling those like crazy, but I immediately recognized the need. How do you make this stand out? There’s a lot of material out there on careers, on starting a business, finding your passion, all of that. How do you make this stand out? So I was way back then experimenting with what is the catch phrase? You know, I had 30 days to the work you have. DM: (04:47) Well, 30 is just a generic number. It’s like seven, 10 30, 90, 180. And this was back when 48 hours was becoming popular as a TV show. And I said, I’ll bet I can get some brand recognition. If I use that number 48, wasn’t very scientific. Roy. Wasn’t very thoughtful, but I just did it as a marketing technique, just as let’s try this. We started sending out 48 peppermint patties with every order that we were sending out. And that became something that was really iconic that people recognized and expected, but it was so powerful. It really was like somebody threw gasoline on my business because it was something that got their attention and thus what you do with branding. So 48 days now, here’s how that, you know, gonna close the gap here. I mean, I’m still known as a career coach. So if you put in career coaching in a Google search, you’re going to get 13, 14 million sites. DM: (05:46) I’m sure I’m in there somewhere, but I don’t really care where you put in 48 days. Just that nothing else. I own it. I’m going to own the first couple of pages of Google, not because of fancy SEO or buying ads or anything just because I’m the guy who says not just, well, we’ll figure this out. When the kids graduate, when you get another degree, when you finished paying a mortgage, no, I’m the guy who says you can change your life dramatically in 48 days. If you create a plan and act on it. So I discovered that 20 years ago, and that was so powerful. And so I’ve built everything and celery products all come back to that core message. And that’s important as well. One core message, not 10 different messages, one core message, figure out how God has uniquely gifted you. What’s it going to look like on Monday morning? That’s the message I’ve built from that all these years. RV: (06:42) It seems like you recognize also the problem was a big part of like you recognized early on. Wow. People are really struggling to find purpose. Like they’re really struggling to find sort of their sort of their career identity. So what’s, what is your business model? So you mentioned career coach, and I think, you know, I know a lot of people who kind of think of you in that space, cause that’s like, you know, a lot of, kind of what you’re writing about career transition or you have written about what’s your actual business model. Like how, how do you make money? And then also give us a sense of how that’s evolved over time. And and, and also when did you start this, right? Like how many years ago did you start on this journey? You know, so that we’ve got some perspective cause we got some people that are pretty experienced and then we’ve also got people who are brand new beginners, you know, just trying to kind of figure it out and find their way. DM: (07:36) Well, I started this really about 22 years ago when I started teaching that Sunday school class and the low hanging fruit. So to speak in terms of monetization was coaching. People want said, man, can you meet with me? You know, help me review revise. RV: (07:55) One-On-One you’re talking like one on one coaching. DM: (07:57) Absolutely. So initially I was co when I made the transition and stop the other things I was doing to do just this, I was coaching five days a week, five days a week because the needs were so immense. And here’s the thing about building a brand. I could still be doing that today. The needs of certainly not diminished, they’ve increased, but today, well, starting then, as soon as I started develop other parts of my business, I went to four days to three days to two days today I dedicate one day a month to personal coaching because the other parts, my business have grown now, what has, what has happened there? You know, as you know, as you mentioned at the brand new addition to 48 days to the work you love out as a book. But when I do my projections financially, even though I have a New York times bestselling book and others, lots of others out there too, I project zero in income income directly from a book is so elusive. DM: (09:01) You can’t really do a whole lot to make it happen. I feel like it’s kind of, you know, getting, getting an ice cream cone when those royalty checks come, but I don’t place any direct focus on that, but I use the message and leverage it in other ways. So we have a course that goes with that an online course in person course, other insulary products that we’ve got with that. And because I have a clear core message, I do get requests for speaking. So there’s that, you know, universities contact me a lot for speaking and then there’s live events. Cause right now we’ve changed that model. But we have lots of live events that are really popular. We’ve been doing those at the sanctuary, which you know, is just a barn on our property and Franklin. We, we say we limit those to 48 people. We usually have 60 there. We can kind of cram 60 in that little space. And we were doing seven of those a year, 70 events. People pay a thousand dollars each for those. So 60 times, seven times, RV: (10:09) Hold on, I want to capture this. So you said, so you’re saying seven events a year and six 60 people, DM: (10:19) Right? RV: (10:20) So you’re talking about 420 people, right? 60 times seven DM: (10:27) I’m thousand dollars. So there’s that property on our property and dollars just right there. That’s right. So no, you know, no overhead, no hotel fees. We could handle our own catering. We’d have a lot of fun. We’d have famous, Dave’s show up with their red truck and do live barbecue right on our property and just fun things like that. But our overhead was extremely low. So it did that. And then affiliate commissions, you know, nurturing relationships. My goodness right now I’m doing a lot of interviews. Well, I set out like 50 packets, like I said to you for this book. And I didn’t send those to anybody who I don’t have a longterm relationship with. So you talked about our friendship goes back 10 years. That’s pretty typical. So if I send it to John Lee Dumas or Pat Flynn or Dave Ramsey or Michael Hyatt, you know, those are all people that I know. DM: (11:21) I didn’t just send these out cold and say, Hey, interview me zero of those. These are the people that I know. So I sent those out. I’ve already booked I think 36 interviews as a result of that. So there’s that kind of exponential impact on my brand that comes easily when I’ve developed a relationship. So for years, and then affiliate commissions, the same kind of thing. So a free Edwards is promoting is a copywriting Academy. You know, I promote that. Well, I think the last time I did that one in particular, I think I got $26,000. So, you know, affiliate commissions are another way there. And then the biggest thing, the thing I’m most excited about right now is our online community. So what we talking about though, is having, RV: (12:08) Is that, is that a membership? Is this like a membership model? DM: (12:11) Yes. Yes. It’s $48 a month. We just went with my signature number $40 a month. But it’s where people who know they have an idea they want to pursue, they want to develop it. They can link arms with other people who were in the same path where there’s a generous sharing of ideas and resources. So they’re in that now it’s fairly new for us. We have about 1100 people in there right now. And I’m very quickly focused on growing that to 2,500 people. Well, again, if you do the math on that, you know, 2,500 people, $40 a month, that’s another, that’s a million dollar revenue stream there and doesn’t require a whole lot of me, but it’s those things that have allowed me then to go from coaching, something that requires all of my time and effort and also something that requires that generates linear income. I do at once get paid ones into these models where there’s continuity, where there’s ongoing revenue and things that require very little, my time RV: (13:14) [Inaudible]. So I love that. So you’ve built into that. So you started as service model and then you moved. Can you give me an idea with the courses? Do you do one course for every book or do you just have one course and are, are your courses like, you know, higher price ones or lower price ones? Or have you done like a little bit of all of them? Like give us a sense, a sense of that, because it seems like if you, if you’re doing one on one coaching and then that teaches you a lot of content, cause you’re working and then you go, okay, let me put that into a book and you go, if I wrote a book, now I can produce a course. So do you have like one flagship or do you have multiple ones? DM: (13:52) The 40 days to work you love online seminar is, is really what I would call our flagship course. So there is that, but we have other courses and I am quick to throw out a course. I mean, I’ll put together a course. We have a lot of courses that are $48. How to start a business with 15 hours a week, how to overcome your upper upper limit challenge in those are things I’m doing one right now, I’m going to put together on how to hack cars. So you can drive exotic cars without cost you any money. But I put together courses and in, in having an audience, having an audience that pays attention, I can put things out there and there’s a ready receptance of those. I don’t have to do some fancy, you know, click funnel, launch to get it out there and surprise a lot of people who never heard about me. Now we do a lot of just gentle releases inside our community. And then they spread the word to what goes beyond that. RV: (14:55) So on those courses. So you’ll see like the flagship course versus a $48 course, like just a quick one. How much time is there a big time difference in the content like is, is and I just mean like recorded time. So like if I buy your flagship course, how many hours, you know, do I need to have versus if it’s like, okay, it’s a, it’s a $48 course on something that’s like kind of fun and fast, you know, is there a big difference? Is it, is it the, is it the topic that determines the price point or is it kind of more of like the volume of, you know, training hours that are in the course? DM: (15:36) Some of both we consider 48 days to really be that big, the big, the big bear, you know, that, that really covers a lot in there. I have 48 videos of the, usually four to six minutes. So they’re short, but in that to really go through it, you know, you need to be prepared to spend 20 hours to really go through that. That’s two 97 is what we charge for that, those that are $48 or $17. You know, some of those you can go through in two hours, so there’s much less content. It’s a very specific topic that we’re addressing. Gotcha. RV: (16:16) In a couple and just a couple hours, but that’s, I mean, that’s really interesting. You’ve, you’ve built a flagship course on something that’s a few hundred bucks. It’s not a thousand dollars or $2,000. And like you’ve been over the course of time here just to kind of steadily grow and grow. Like, is that how you would, you would describe your business as just like a, a snowball that kind of just has been steadily growing and then over, you know, years you look back and go, wow, this has grown to be something pretty, pretty amazing. DM: (16:47) Yeah, it is, you know, a lot of what I’ve done and this is almost embarrassing to admit as a business guy, you know, I didn’t sit down and really create a strategic plan, have my big whiteboard up and all about this. This has really evolved around me because I keep responding to things that people I asked for. One of the mantras that has served me really well is if three people ask me the same question, I create a product to solve that. Wow. So a lot of this, and it’s only been my goodness in as much as I’ve been doing this, you know, 20 years, it’s only been in the last three or four years that I brought in as strategists to really help us map out what we’re doing, but there’s been so much just responding to what people are asking for. And we had those, I mean, I didn’t intend to do live events. DM: (17:40) And then people were asking me, how did you do what you’ve done with 48 days to the work you love? And while I’m telling people and over and over again, I decided it’d be easier to tell people, sitting in a room to do that same way with coaching. How have you become recognized as the coach that you are? Well, we started teaching people now one of our flagship training programs is coaching mastery where people come in and it’s a six month program, $4,800 come in. And again, the economy of scale, we have people in a group we’re going through that at any given time. We walk them through, there’s a weekly call. They have to document, they have to go through this certification coaching one-on-one, which is online training that I’ve done. So it doesn’t require my time. And then they have to document 48 hours of paid coaching. DM: (18:35) And that’s really a distinctive element because there are a lot of coaching certification programs out there where you buy the videos and you’re certified that breaks my heart. You know, how do we measure competence in that? So we require 48 hours of documented where I listened to recordings and all that on, on that to get somebody certified, but it’s responding to what people are asking for and in doing so, I keep seeing these new areas of things that are developing as major business legs for us. And the interesting thing is, I mean, right now we know live events have been decimated well, fortunately we’ve got a whole lot of other things in place that have been accelerated in this period of time. Sure. But the interesting thing is as well, if I anticipate what I want my business to look like three years from now, there are some core components that will certainly be continuing, but I am confident there’s going to be new things that I can’t even imagine yet. DM: (19:40) That to me, that’s really exciting. So I use as my business model, a Venn diagram with three circles. So they overlap in the center, are my books. My writing, my writing is my first love. That’s, that’s my zone of genius. That’s where I want to spend more and more time, but those don’t create money directly, but they fuel the growth of everything else we have in place as part of our business model. But having that Venn diagram then allows seven distinct areas. So that at any given time, one of those can be on the bubble. Is this going to continue or not? But replacing it, doesn’t put us back starting over. It’s simply a small component of continuing to move forward. RV: (20:30) So in terms of your audience, like you mentioned it you know, I think there’s such a, there’s such a craze around social media, you know, and, and that, and, and you’re not someone that, I mean, you’ve got a social media following, but you’re not someone that it’s like, you go, Oh yeah, this guy is he’s, he’s the killer. He’s the King of online influence. So you’ve been building your community in some other way. I’m going to presume as more of like the email list and the podcast. So could you just talk about how you what’s, what are some of your philosophies around building that audience? Cause that’s, that is how I think of you is you have this community that you’ve built a longterm relationship with longterm trust. You’re not always pitching them the next highest dollar thing. It’s low dollar things consistently that provide value. RV: (21:24) The soft launches. They’re not like these huge, like blitzes where everyone in the world hears about them. It’s like very casual and, and, and in a nurturing relationship. And I think that’s, that’s just a philosophy that I think is not as many people hear about. I mean, the other one certainly can, can generate a lot of income and be successful too. But I feel like everything you do is more kind of just like graceful. And I, I don’t know that it’s, that slower is not the right word, but it’s more like organic and maybe slower is the word it’s not rut. It doesn’t feel rushed all the time. DM: (22:00) You are exactly right. And I do that very intentionally. Is it tempting to jump on the bandwagon with some of the news, social media things we’ve got where you can do, you know, a $2 million launch? Yeah, it is. But I resist a lot of what I see in those spaces and the way that they use slick sales copy, oughta, hype, urgency, all those things in artificial ways to move people into making a decision. And what I see that also, you know, I hear from people who do a launch like that, and then they have a 30 to 40% refund rate. You gotta be kidding me. I mean, we, you know, we track like with mail order, you can anticipate like 12 to 15% returns just buyer’s remorse. You know how that goes. We’ve never hit 1% in what we do. And what that means is are we missing some of those big infusions of cash? DM: (23:09) Yeah, absolutely. I recognize that I liked the other way around, you know, in our community and in online communities tend to be really volatile. People come in and you know, stick their toe in the water. And two months later they’re gone in shirt is horrendous. That’s not true in my community. We have people who come in and they’re going to be there for a life. They just stay. I have people who have purchased everything I’ve ever done. So they started with an $8 audio. They moved into a $297 course. They came to a live event, you know, then they went through coaching mastery. Then they want to have access to my mastermind. You know, they’ve spent 30, $40,000 with me, but it’s been over a period of time. Not all at once. We’ve looked at that. And again, boy, is it tempting with some of these things, but we did well, I just prefer the tortoise and the Hare. Remember that kid’s story. RV: (24:16) So to dive in on that a little bit, cause I, you know, when I think of like, you know, the different mentors that I have in my life and, and that agent and I’ve had over the years, you know, I think a lot of my life is driven by kind of, you know, like my early development is ambition and success and hustle and drive and even, you know, my own book self-discipline and taking the stairs and you guys are really, I feel like are like a counterbalancing force in our life, which is more like harmony peace you know, like pace lifestyle. And can you talk a little bit about that? Like, just in terms of how much you work and, and, and was there, was it more like there was a season when all you did was hustle and it was like, you know, do the Gary Vaynerchuk work until your eyeballs bleed and then you kinda got to a point where you pulled it back or have you always just kinda been like steady Eddie kind of plugging along, but doing other stuff and like, you know, having, I don’t know, I don’t really love the word balance necessarily, but you know, more, more pursuits outside of just like driving the entrepreneurial success story. DM: (25:32) I’ve always hustled. I kind of resist that word because of what it seems to imply, but I’ve always been a hard worker. I’ve always been disciplined. I enjoy work. There is no way that I am trying to get to four hour workweek. It’s just not on the horizon at all. I have zero desire to ever get there. I hope the day I die, you know, that I write three new chapters in my current book in the morning and then go to my funeral in the afternoon. I have no desire to pare down, but now that being said, I’m very strategic about how I use my time. So let me give you a quick example. Mondays are I take care of anything having to do with business? So meetings with my team, always on Monday benders, considering new software, whatever those things all take place on Monday, Tuesday is my coaching day. DM: (26:29) So any coaching calls I have happened, then I have our coaching mastery call call with my personal mastermind. All this kind of things happen on Tuesday, Monday morning, I do my podcast, I that magic mailbox with mr questions. And I put my podcasts together Wednesday afternoon, I’m available for interviews. So I usually do three or four interviews on Wednesday afternoons. That’s the only time Thursday and Friday, no appointments, no commitments. Those are dedicated to at Cal Cal Newport calls, deep work, deep work. That’s when I think and write, I love. And to me looking at the course of my week like that, I mean, it’s like, you know, salivating to get to the piece of key lime pie. That’s what it’s like for me to get to Thursday and Friday, because I love that so much, but those are days. And inevitably there’s an opportunity. Gee, we want to get together for a committee meeting. Do we want to have you come to this conference or whatever? No, I’m more protective of those two days than anything. Now, to me that provides the kind of harmony that I want my weekly schedule. So I’m not overbooked. I’m not rushing around. I’m not, you know, crazy with, you know, things on top of each other. And so in rushing in and out, I live a very casual life. I’m pretty introverted. So I’m not looking for lots of things, just immerse me in crowds. And I have a really peaceful life. RV: (28:11) I mean, it’s, it’s a wonderful thing. And it’s just your, your home is peaceful. Your relationships are peaceful. And I just, I really think it’s it’s a different energy about how you’ve done it. And yet it’s been hugely successful. It’s given you everything and more, I think that you ever originally set out to do. I mean, beyond DM: (28:35) I, I’m still humbled in recognizing that on a decent day, I make more money than my dad ever made in a year. That’s pretty astounding. You know, I’m a simple farm kid, but I recognize the power of having, having a system in place systems that work for you systems that create residual income. And it allows a freedom that is just hard to have imagined even 20 years ago. And one of the things that comes up a lot roar, and you, you, you’ve alluded to this. A lot of what I get contacted for today is not how to grow your Facebook likes by another 20,000 people, how to get more bog hours or how to launch product. There’s a whole lot of guys out there and your generation that can do a better job with that than I, but I get contacted a whole lot by your generation saying, how can I make sure I create the kind of life that you enjoy and are living now that I don’t screw this up? Just recently, I had worked with the young guy who went from $50,000 a year in one year to two to 1.3 million and is looking to grow that there’s a tendency in that to sabotage it, if you aren’t careful. And he’s saying, how can I protect the things that matter most to me, even though I don’t have to get up and hustle to make another buck this afternoon? RV: (30:05) Yeah. Well that DM: (30:07) Is an RV: (30:09) Awesome perspective. And I think a different perspective that we don’t, we don’t hear enough of Dan, where do you want people to go? If they want to kind of plug in and see how you do it and what you do, and maybe join in as a being led by you? Where, what where would you direct them? DM: (30:25) Well, I appreciate that we created a really cool page for your listeners. They go to 48 days.com/rory, and you’ll see samples of the new book. There’s a quiz there. How close are you to living your best life? I really love that and just free resources. They can go there and circles, see other things we’re doing. RV: (30:48) I love it. We’ll put a link to 48 days.com/rory. You could go check that out. Damn. We wish you the best we miss you at Tennessee. I know you’re down there in Florida now, but thank you so much for your, for your, for your wisdom and, and and just your perspective in your friendship. DM: (31:04) Hey, always my pleasure, Roy. Thanks. [inaudible].

Ep 101: The Battle Against Reactive Busyness with Juliet Funt | Recap Episode

RV: (00:00) Hey, good news. You just listened to the 100th episode of the influential personal brand podcast. HOOORAYYY pretty amazing to start a brand new podcast and get to a hundred episodes, it’s exciting for us. Hopefully you enjoyed it. So the interview was with Juliet Funt one of our good friends and like always, we’re going to be breaking it down for you here, give you the recap kind of cliff notes and just our takeaways of, of what it meant for us. So why don’t you kick us off first, babe? AJ: (00:43) I think my biggest thing was more on her personal brand, which is just the importance of having white space. I think all of us are plagued by the life of busy-ness and what’s next. And how much can I fit in versus providing a little time to think process brainstorm, strategize, and I love what she talked about. It’s just like how many of us have time in our calendars to think, just to think me with nothing to do no emails, no podcasts, no projects, no calls, no meetings, just white space. And I think that’s amazing because so much of our creative time happens during just blank space. Right. I just, that’s such a great term. And I just, I think out of everything, I love that the most of just making sure that every single day your calendar has white space to just think, to create, to imagine, to just be in what you’re doing. And I think that that’s hard that actually takes quite a bit of discipline to do that versus, okay, great. I’ve got five minutes. How many emails can I check off? Or how many of this can I do? And I’m totally guilty of that. And just building in white space. I love that. That was my, that was by far my biggest thing. RV: (02:05) Yeah. I mean, that’s a big takeaway of mine too. It is, you know, the way she describes it, like it could even just be this interstitial sip of space. It doesn’t have to be like a 30 minute or a 60 minute block necessarily, but I think the interstitial, yeah. AJ: (02:24) And he knew I was going to ask that didn’t you? Right. So even when she was saying it, I was like, interstitial RV: (02:32) Fancy. AJ: (02:33) I need to figure out how to work this into conversation RV: (02:38) The day here, Brand Builders Group interstitial. Not really, but I kind of, I’m kind of guessing, but AJ: (02:46) Taking it and being like, Oh, I can repeat this. RV: (02:51) Here’s the, here was the thing in terms of, you know, like for me, I think I, I almost feel like a slacker if I stop and pause and just like have nothing. I’m like, well, you’re not being like I’m not being productive. And the way that she described it was like, if you’re busy every second of the day, you’re not allowing yourself to catch the brilliant innovations. Like you’re not allowing yourself to catch the big ideas and the big creative moments. And so it’s almost like having that white space, if you’re a personal brand, it’s essential, like it’s a part of the creative process. And so having that permission, I just, I just thought that was powerful, powerful as well. So my second big takeaway was really about her lifestyle and I thought it was interesting to me that, you know, she’s almost been two years. RV: (03:47) Her family have been gone from the United States for two years, living on the road, providing, you know, a whole income funding, their team, and being able to do everything virtually. And, you know, even if that’s not your dream or my dream or our dream, like the idea of saying, of having that as an option in your life, like having your business set up in a way that it can be flexible and virtual like that, and still be able to finance a great living. I, I thought that was really cool. And, and also a great example of her living out her uniqueness and actually doing the things that she talks. AJ: (04:29) Yeah. You know, it’s so funny because I was listening to this podcast and for like a whole minute, I was like, Oh, that sounds so good. And then I remembered that my kids are one and three, and then I had hot flashes. I was like, Oh no, no one had this idea. Maybe when they’re older. Yeah. But it was like one of those moments, I’m like, Oh, this is awesome. And then I was like, Oh, not, not for one and three year olds. Yeah. I love that too. And I just, I think that’s the power of where we kind of are in today’s world and creating a business that allows you to do whatever you want to do. So even if it’s not traveling, just the concept of creating a business that fits your lifestyle. My second one I thought was just a very kind of like high level takeaway, but I loved how she talks about how she was so far along. AJ: (05:23) She is so far along in her career and is just now launching her first book. And that people just assumed she had one because she is a successful speaker and has this business. And of course you have a book. And I just think that’s really hopeful and introspective for so many things of you can be so established as a personal brand, without a book. You can also be super established with one, but you don’t have to have one to make your Mark. And I just think that’s really great for all of you who are like, Oh my gosh, the thought doing that just seems daunting. Well, don’t do it. There are so many other ways like she has been incredibly successful up until now and now is just doing the book. So I just, RV: (06:09) Yeah, again, that’s interesting, an interesting permission that it’s like, there’s multiple ways to do this. Like there’s not just one way to be successful as a personal brand, as a speaker, as a whatever you influence or whatever you want to call it. So I like that. The other thing that I actually liked was one of my takeaways, which is kind of similar to this which is sort of different than what we preach a little bit at brand builders group. Not really, but she said you have permission to be iterative and speak on lots of things as a way of finding it. Right. And so that’s for those of you that if you’ve been to our, our kind of our flagship first event is called finding your brand DNA or strategy day, that is where we help people find their uniqueness and figure out like, what were you uniquely designed to deliver? RV: (07:01) Which I think is still powerful. But I also think what she’s saying is powerful that, you know, absent that kind of clarity, you can learn by trying and by testing some things out, hold on, hold on, hold on. I know you’re like dying to like get in here, but and, and even, I’m not so sure that I love, like I personally kind of follow the idea of speak about lots of things at, at one time, but I do like the idea of being iterative and going, Hey, I’m going to do something and I’m going to be great on that. And then I’m going to reinvent it and then I’m going to reinvent it. And then I remember, so I really liked the iterative idea that even if you’re, even if you’re going after you, you, your uniqueness, it doesn’t have, you don’t have to sign a stone tablet that says, this is what I’m going to talk about the rest of my life, which were a great example of that. We are in a new season, AJ: (07:50) Cause you kind of started with this is contrary a little bit to what we say, but it’s really not. Because she said it’s like speak on many things, but once that, but one at a time, one at a time, and I think that’s the key it’s like, you cannot be a wellness and nutrition speaker and a leadership speaker and a sales speaker and an economist at the same time. That just makes no sense. It’s like, maybe you could speak on fitness and wellness and nutrition, but those are all like lumped together. But I just think now over time, maybe you start as this and then it evolves into this and then into this. And that’s what I think you were saying and what she came around to saying too, it’s wasn’t like, you’re, you’re speaking on a body image and marketing at the same time. That’s, that’s not what happened. It evolved into that. And then into another thing, and I think that’s a natural process of just finding your niche and then reinventing I think that’s all really natural. I knew you were going to say that. RV: (08:53) And, and the other thing about that that made me think of is just like, you know, what brand builders group, we don’t teach people to only talk about one thing. We teach people to have a very clear message and that message can be applied to multiple different, multiple different things and angles. So anyways, that, that, but again, that was kind of a different perspective. So what was your third takeaway? AJ: (09:12) I think my third takeaway was just the general conversation of how you grow into your personal brand. I just think that, so for so many people you just have to get started, right? And it’s such a great reminder that many times, your first speaking engagement or your first 100 sometimes will be free, but that doesn’t mean you don’t do it. And hers, you know, she was doing this a lot until she got paid $750 whoop right. Big paycheck that it’s like, this is all a part of the journey. It’s all a part of the mission. And she’s been doing this for a very long time and it’s just now doing her book. And I love what she said about that component, which is if she had written this five, 10 years ago, it wouldn’t be the book that it deserved to be that you needed to wait until this moment for her. AJ: (10:01) And I just, I think that’s so important for us all to like, not feel pressured by what everyone else is doing. And if we can just like stop the comparison game and go, well, I have to have a book or I’m going to no, no, no, no, you don’t. You do it, as soon as you feel called to and not until and I think just like listening to your own internal guide on that is so important because there is, there is no secret recipe for so many of us. It’s just, what do you want to do and do it at the right time and at the right pace. And I just thought that was a good reminder of just the growth pattern of how she started her personal brand and her career. RV: (10:39) I love that. And I, I, she, I know that she wouldn’t mind me saying this roughly, but the other thing is she got a very large, the largest book advance. I know of, for, of like a first time, a first time author, because she, she did it right. And she built it and she waited until she felt like now is the time. And she, now she has a huge platform. And so there you have it, there’s, there’s multiple ways to do this. You can figure it out. It can be done. Don’t compare yourself to what other people are doing. AJ: (11:09) Yeah. I love this all the time about, it’s like, don’t compare your step one to someone else’s step 1000 and it’s so easy to do. And maybe you thinking, Oh, first time author, but she is not a newbie. She is not a beginner. I think those are all in context of like, Oh, first time, like, okay, well that, that’s very broad and context of like first time author, but that does not mean newbie. Right. So I just think all those things are RV: (11:37) Bama was a first time author too. I think Speaker 3: (11:41) Oland content content, AJ: (11:43) I think again, just don’t compare your step one to someone else’s stuff. RV: (11:47) And hopefully you’ll stay here as a source of encouragement and education. We’re so excited. Hey, thank you for all the reviews. I was checking out the reviews. Thanks for sticking with us a hundred episodes. We’re just getting started. We’ve got so many great people for you to hear from, but we’re glad you’re here. We want to follow you and continue encouraging you on your journey. We’ll get you next time. Speaker 4: (12:13) [Inaudible].

Ep 100: The Battle Against Reactive Busyness with Juliet Funt

RV: (00:06) Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview, we are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming. From anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show. RV: (01:03) I’m so excited to introduce you to one of the coolest people ever here. Juliet funds a story just as a first of all, I’ve known her for years. I met her in the national speakers association years ago when I was this little runt kid, she’s an amazing performer. She has spoken at the global leadership summit, which is like the largest speaking event in the world multiple times. She’s the CEO of a very successful company. And she works with a lot of the fortune 500. So her expertise is around something called white space, which you’re gonna, you’re gonna hear about and we’re going to talk about it and the company is white space at work. But you’re gonna tell us a little bit about her story. So one thing to know, she just got I don’t know how to say this. RV: (01:50) A very awesome, awesome book deal with Harper Collins, juicy, juicy. Yeah. So it’s coming out. Yeah. So we’ll maybe talk a little bit about that. The other thing is she has the last couple years, or several times in her career, she has built her business while living abroad with her family. And she has lived that dream of being able to speak and write and let you know, travel with her family and see the world. So she’s just incredible and had to bring her on. And so Juliet it’s, it’s good to chat with you. I have been called different things, but JF: (02:26) The coolest, so infrequently one of them and I’ve always wanted to be cool. So I’m really, I’m super excited about this one. RV: (02:32) Well, yeah, so I mean, you are cool. I mean, you do cool stuff. You’re your content is fantastic. I think that’s super relevant. I want to, I do want to hear about that, but I, I want to start by your story about how you got into the industry. I think a lot of, a lot of people listening, you know, they want to be a speaker. They want to speak at big events. They want to be an author. They want to travel the world. They want to maybe work with the fortune 500. Some of our clients are more on that, like kind of corporate track, some are more entrepreneurial, but you’ve been able to do so many of those things. And can you just like, give us a little bit of behind the scenes of how did you get started and then how did you end up there and then like, how do you see the world now in terms of your personal brand? JF: (03:23) Yeah, so I started, I really started my speaking career when I decided to be a theater student because the performance elements that I learned when I went to Northwestern and thought that I was going to spend my life with pinner and Shakespeare and Shaw have actually been the secret sauce of everything else that I did in my career. So I tell people constantly whatever you’re about to do to build your career in any aspect, go take acting and theater and improv and voice lessons first, because there’s something about creating a performer self that then follows you around and amplifies everything else that you do for your entire career. And I was just lucky that I accidentally ended up thinking I wanted to be in theater and learning all of those things in college. And, and I did it for a little while. It wasn’t a right match for me, but then those skills sort of became part of my kit bag that I took with me everywhere else. JF: (04:16) And I was really lost in my twenties. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I wasn’t one of those people that found it early, I did catering. I was what’s called a food stylist, which is when you take a little tiny tweezer and you make food beautiful for photo shoots. I’ve always been really into that. And along the way, I started volunteering because I had an eating disorder in my twenties and I spoke on some panels. So, sorry, where’s that off? It’s not even going off now. So sorry. I spoke on some panels. People asked me if I would speak on panels for eating disorders and it was just me with three or four other people, personal testimonial. How did you get better? What did it look like? I was very young and something happened when I was on those panels at those little folding chairs and folding tables at high schools and colleges, where I realized that people leaned in when I was talking in a way that seemed different than other people. JF: (05:18) And it seemed like I enjoyed putting together the arc of thought the stories connecting with the audience. There was something there and it was different from acting because it was getting to be myself and it wasn’t being another person. It wasn’t having to pretend that I was another person. It was me, but still in front of an audience, there was something kind of magical. I just got a little tiny goosebumps of just that feeling of I get to be me, but I still get to perform. And so speaking became an Avenue for that. Now I put it back aside for years and years and years, and I was still doing some volunteer work. I did some talks in colleges and high schools, and that was the beginning of my paid career, but I was working my job as sorry, when you first RV: (05:59) Is this, like how many people are in a room here? Like when you’re first starting. I mean, I have to assume, you know, like some of the events you speak at now or 7,000 people in an arena, and you’re like up there doing your performance when you started, I’m guessing it was quite a bit different than that. 12 people JF: (06:19) For $750. I remember this one eating disorder talk. When I first started getting booked to be paid, to go up and talk about body image and women and media. I was writing content and I was expanding beyond personal testimonial and this little kind of funky high school way up in the mountains in Colorado that paid me $750. Cause a friend of mine, Scott Greenberg, who’s another speaker. We were volunteering at the same place. And he said, come up and got me my first gig. And that was, that was that one. And then I very quickly evolved out of youth and education evolved out of the topic of food, started talking about media, started talking about over-scheduling of teenagers, which was the crossover topic because these kids were so busy, they were busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, and Hey, their parents were busy and their administrators were busy and everybody was busy. And that became the very, very early seeds of whitespace was looking at why are we so overloaded? Why do we keep moving this way? Why don’t we have time to think and pause and breathe and appreciate. And that really quickly took over everything, all the food related body related image stuff dropped completely away. And that became my topic, which became the seeds of white space. And then, yeah, RV: (07:33) That Peter’s early, like the early, like you cry. That was pretty much like your first pivot became the foundation, which you’ve pretty much stuck with of just like, over-scheduling just that concept of being overloaded, you know, just busy over-scheduled. JF: (07:50) But I tell speakers any, and people creating a brand. It actually took me years to get to the point where you’re describing this as a fast pivot. So when people come to me and they say, I don’t know my topic yet. I say, speak on everything in the sun for five years and don’t even worry about it. Don’t even worry about finding the lane cause you might want to be in the lane for a while. Don’t don’t marry the first guy, a kiss, you know, just that get, stay in their play, try different topics, commit to something and then know that it’s going to be iterative and give yourself permission to tell everybody you’re one thing. And then be another thing two days later, this is just so important. I think. RV: (08:29) Interesting. so then over the course of time, like why do you think like a lot of speakers kind of come and go and I’m using speakers just cause that’s kind of the way that we kind of interfaced and met. Do you, do you see yourself as more of a speaker, a consultant, a trainer like an entrepreneur? Like how has that evolved? Cause it does sound like you started as a speaker. JF: (08:57) Yeah. The first, the first 15 years was a speaker. Now the last 10 years has been as an entrepreneur. And I actually had sort of a victory of sorts last year where I spent 14 months in a row where I made no money from speaking. And for me, that victory is that I I’m ready. It’s been 20 years. I love speaking. I’m enjoying different things. Now I’m enjoying writing. I’m enjoying running a company I’m enjoying figuring out where our philanthropic dreams are going to go. And so I feel like I don’t need so much of that anymore. And it was a, it was just a victory in terms of business to be able to sustain ourselves 14 months, no speaking, because speaking is a very lucrative part of our revenue model. And it’s also the most lucrative part of our lead generation model for the things that we sell as a company. So you pull out speaking, you realize, Oh my gosh, all other lead sources suck compared to speaking because there’s something about being up there. The people that you meet are already enthralled with what you’re talking about by the time you even move into a conversation of, can we help you? So you take all of that out for over a year. It’s way more lost than just the revenue loss. RV: (10:10) Yeah. I mean, that’s a, I guess those are the blessings and the curses of a great have a great have a great speaking business. And so so let’s talk about that a little bit because you, you, so it’s interesting that you did that 14 months ago, like for 14 months, a couple of years ago, and now in a COVID world, everybody’s doing that JF: (10:35) Speaking disappeared, RV: (10:37) You know, as a model, it kind of disappeared and you were already traveling and I know, you know, travel, you know, we’ve talked about this. This is kind of a sensitive thing. JF: (10:47) Yeah. Let me actually, I’m just before you get to travel, let me just, I feel like we left our well, we left our friends a little bit disjointed in the middle of a story because we’re having so much fun jumping around, but let me just finish. So youth and education led to talking on overload, which led to about 15 years, speaking on this concept called white space. We can talk more about that in a minute. And then at some point a client said, can you scale this? And we built a company with models that could be taught and digitized and shared, and that’s what we do now. So what allowed me to take that 14 month period was that we sell a lot of other things that are not now involving me speaking for a check. And so that’s just to finish a little bit of that story before we flip to travel, which is so interesting. I just wanted to let them understand the last chapters there. RV: (11:39) No, actually I’m glad that I’m glad that you closed close that loop cause that’s really important. And that’s, that’s I think that’s a rare position that a lot of personal brands never get to the point where they transitioned from a personal brand to a real business where they, they are scaling how many people are, are in like the whole white space at work team. JF: (11:58) It’s small, we’re tiny boutique. We have 11 people including our part time people. And you know, just so you know, it’s still a struggle every day to separate the brand from me. I have branding conversations, people all the time. You’ve been one of the people that I’ve come to for help in a lot of areas that, that there’s something about the looping in of my personality with the brand personally, we’ve tried pulling pictures off the website. We’ve tried pushing the content instead of pushing the person. But it’s really tough when you grow a tree, it’s like those two trees, you see that grow up on a, on a side of a wall in Cuba or Guatemala or something where they’re just, they grew into each other and it’s very hard to unwind them. I definitely have not cracked that secret sauce yet of extricating myself. RV: (12:49) Yeah. Although you have been able to create the lifestyle that we were talking about here, which is where, you know, you’ve lived the dream for years at a time of being able to take your kids and your family and go on the road. You’ve got three kids, right? JF: (13:07) I have three boys, 10, 12, and 14. Now we left on this trip that you’re talking about two years ago. Next week on our anniversary, August 28th is going to be two years on the road. And it has been a dreamy combination of the world of white space. It’s the ultimate white space application really? And it came out of, I was having do you know, David Covey, but one of the Covey brothers RV: (13:38) I’ve met David Covey. I haven’t, I actually he’s been at my he’s been to my house one time. The only time I met him. JF: (13:44) So I had, I was having Indian food with David Covey and salt Lake city about four years ago. And he told me that he lived in different countries with his children when they were growing up. But, but he did a year at a time and he ran his businesses and lived in different countries. And it just fascinated me and it captured my attention and it percolated and percolated and percolated. And then we met these people that were doing something called a world schooling, which had a name in which had an association. And they had conferences about people who had decided that travel was a better education for their children than school. And we left, it took me about four months to convince my husband. And then one day he left a map. I get up about five 36. He gets up around nine and stays up till a billion o’clock in the morning. JF: (14:32) So we have very different schedules and he left a little map in the shape of a heart on my desk. One morning for my 6:00 AM walk in and said, let’s go. And he finally went over the line and decided, and then we left and we went to, we stayed domestic for the first months only because of speaking. I would have been international immediately, but I couldn’t be far away. Cause I was flying away from the trip to go finish the gigs that had already been booked. And then once that concluded and we were able to say, no more gigs after a certain date, then we went international. We’ve been in Europe, Asia, Bali, Thailand. And we are now in New Zealand where we were supposed to be for two months before going to China. And then obviously didn’t go to China. And then we waited and waited. And now we’ve been here six months and we just applied for another six months. Cause honestly we don’t really know where to go. So COVID has stopped the trip where we’re very dedicated to one more location on our way home. So that the story is not that we went on this beautiful trip and then COVID killed it. And we’d like there to be one more different final chapter to go. We’re thinking about going back to Hawaii, which is where we started at the very end RV: (15:48) And, and you’ve been able to do that. So, so the business you mind sharing with us a little bit, how have you operated? JF: (15:54) No, I’m trans transparent to the point of you have to stop me and then I get myself in trouble. So that’s not, that’s not hard to share. We have not sold a house or gone on savings or anything for any portion of this trip. We have earned as we’ve traveled with the one exception that I have quite a lot of miles. So miles have helped for sure with the international, but I work, I live on a laptop. I go into coffee houses all over the world. And in Bali I watched the ducks and in, you know Croatia, I was on my laptop in a hotel above these fighting Russian tourists. Every time I would go work and I pull out the laptop and I, I work in the time zones, kick my butt. And in Bali, I’m up till two in the morning and here I’m up at four 30 and you get used to it and we have a remote team. So we sell, we sell an online product now and actually COVID inversed what you just said, which is that I went back to live presenting because of COVID because so many people wanted immediate help with work from home efficiency, which is a subset of our work. So I actually did more presentations in the last four months than I did in the previous two years. RV: (17:13) But they’ve all been virtual. Yeah. JF: (17:14) Correct? Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. I’m just talking about speaking for money came back after. Yeah. RV: (17:22) Well, and I think that’s it. I think that’s really interesting because you know, if you hang around the speaker crowd, you know, there’s a lot of like, Oh my gosh, you know, all the gigs are postponing and et cetera, et cetera. And it’s like at the same time, every company in America is having meetings every single day that are virtual and they need outside voices. And it’s like, in some ways there’s more opportunity than ever. No one has to rent a ballroom, they just need a link. And like you can be in front of their entire company from anywhere in the world. Like you’re, you’re stuck in quote unquote stuck in New Zealand. JF: (17:58) Yeah. It’s a bad word for wouldn’t being here, but yes. RV: (18:01) Yeah. well I think that’s, I think that’s, that’s, that’s amazing. Now you also have this book deal. How did the book deal come about? Cause that happened over that same time period, right? JF: (18:14) The book deal had been so that my, my, the comic secret of my professional career is that everybody already thinks I’ve written a book because of where I am in the circuit. So if you’re on stage between you and Marcus Buckingham and then Laszlo Bock comes up, there’s no way that that lady in the middle hasn’t written a book. So everybody always thinks that this is my second or third book. So it’s just a funny thing, but it’s not because I had a lot of trouble writing a book and I had trouble getting quiet enough. I’m super interpersonal. I’m great graded all the parts of business that are interpersonal and the lonely quiet work of the chair. And the laptop is very hard for me, but I also was doing other things and I had three children in six years and I was building this business and I made a decision not to be a mom. JF: (19:01) Who’d never saw my kids. And there was a lot of other things. And so the book just kept getting pushed, but there was an agent who adored my work and tracked me through ups and downs of that process. And he became my agent and he’s the best agent in the universe. And when we wrote the proposal, the time was right and we had six offers and it was wonderful. It was a wonderful experience. Wow. And I got the offer. I got the final offer from Harper on a porch in Gatlinburg where we’re looking out at these kinds of Misty. I think I want to say smokey mountains, but I can’t remember if that’s Gatlinburg. My God, it was, I have locked in memory the moment that we got that phone call and, and it’s been a really wonderful experience. I’m preparing for the ups and downs of an actual book launch, especially post COVID. We have a lot of things we’re going through, but it’s been wonderful and I’ve really enjoyed the writing more than I would have guessed. RV: (20:02) I love that story. So, I mean, and you got, I mean, you’re technically a first time author, but you’re not, they’re not treating you like a first time author and that’s something I think that’s good for people to know is like, if for whatever reason you don’t write the book, you don’t write the book, then it’s like, Hey, all of your hard work will catch up with you at some point. JF: (20:22) Yeah. Oh, I’m so glad you brought that up. Cause I, if I could have had someone I trusted relieve the pressure the 10, 15 years in NSA of write the book, write the book, write the book, write the book. If I had written the book at any of those times, it wouldn’t have been this book and it wouldn’t have been as fully cooked and it wouldn’t have been as perfect as it is now to write this book. And so I’m glad I didn’t write the book. I’m glad I didn’t use my content and my brand and the name Widespace on a book that was so much more juvenile than this book will be. Cause I couldn’t have done it twice. And so that I wish that I could have taken that out of my psychological equation. Maybe I can do it for one other person. RV: (21:05) Yeah. Well, and it’s like, you can do it both. Like you can, you can do it both ways. You can be successful either way. Like, you know, some people say, Hey, the book changed my life and here you’re going, look, I was able to do it without it. And now I can write the book and you know, it was like, the book is going to change your life. Again, and it’s like a whole, you know, but it’s not, it’s not a, it’s not as a straightforward formula that you must follow one way or the other. Right. so I love that. Okay. So I want to, I want to spend a few minutes actually talking about this. So, you know your story, I wanted everyone to hear your story about kind of the sequence of how things have gone and, and, and what that’s looked like. JF: (21:50) What is it, RV: (21:50) White space? Can we talk about white space for a second and specifically what is white space? Why does it matter? And then what I’d like to do is be able to get into the, you know, a conversation of how does that apply to personal brands, which is something that even though you don’t traditionally teach that you are, you are one and you know that, you know, you haven’t been and you know, that space really well. So I’d, I’d love to get like a, a once and only Juliet Funt white space for personal brands in the only place you could get it right here in influential personal brand podcast. JF: (22:26) Cause it’s never been done. So here we go. So white space is we define white space as a strategic pause taken between activities. It’s, it’s the open fluid, flexible unscheduled time that used to be in between things in life and now has gotten filled by busy-ness and cell phones and tech addiction and all the things that we cram in. And one way to think about it is if you imagine the periodic table of the elements, and if you imagine what would happen, if one of the elements just fell out and all of a sudden there was no salt or all of a sudden there was no nitrogen systems would collapse. And we believe that this is the case in a sense with white space, that there is this element that is supposed to be present, weaving in and out of our days for breath, recuperation, stepping back, all sorts of things that this element of white space is supposed to give us permission to have that have now just gone away. And the mission of the book is to reinstate that into the lives of working people everywhere. And that’s my mission as well. RV: (23:39) So it’s like going extinct. It’s this thing that’s sort of disappearing from, from the earth because there’s always JF: (23:46) Something to do. So if you have a second and you can think of it really, really tactically, the name white space came from a couple of different places, but the main place came from coaching executives 20 years ago. And we would look at there then paper day planners and we would look for white is the white, just Penn and Penn and Penn and Penn and Penn. And where is the white space here in this day where somebody could think strategize, prepare for a call, step back, reflect on their own behavior. Where, where is the white deer executives? And that’s where the white spaces coming from. The white space is literally on the calendar came from. So we don’t have it because now when there is a pause, our nervous systems are so wired. Usually it’s just the phone is the simplest first insertion. But if you were to, let’s say you were to finish this podcast and you look at your calendar and you realize that you have seven minutes before the next thing, the chances of you leaving any of those minutes open would be very rare. JF: (24:50) You probably get up and get a cup of coffee and do those things, but then you’d come back and you’d realize you had 40 minutes left. You would probably check your email or check a social feed or do something tactical or manual like unplugged desk or pack a bag or get ready for the, the chances of you leaving even a minute where you just looked up and went, Hmm, how’s my life. How’s my work. How am I? Am I okay? It’s been a lot lately. The chances that you would use that time to leave it open and see what happens is very, very rare. And that’s what we want to change. And for personal brands and entrepreneurs, work is never over the, to do list is never over. So if you have five minutes between calls, you have to jam something in there and get one more thing done and check off one more box. JF: (25:42) And the chances that you would use that time to remain open are light, even when it furthers your business goal. So let’s say you’re an athlete and you have a call in six minutes, that’s going to be with a promoter. Who’s going to do something fantastic for your career. Most people would work right up to a minute before, especially if they’re very experienced salespeople or presenters, they just swing around in their Herman Miller and dial right in. They’re fine. But what if you had white space before that call for five minutes and you sat there and thought, who is this person? How were they last time? What were they into? How do I want to come off? What is it? What could this really mean to me? And you really used thinking as a business tool to change the outcome of what came next, everything would be magically and completely different. And so that is part of the goal. It’s not only personal white space or reflective white space or recuperative white space. It’s also a tactical use of white space to further the thing that comes next. RV: (26:48) Yeah. So it’s, it’s not necessarily, you know, I saw one of your videos one time that said like white spaces, not meditation. JF: (26:55) Yeah. Not meditation, mindfulness nine. My wandering, we go through all the things that it’s not, RV: (27:01) But you’re saying it’s like for entrepreneur or a personal brand, that it, it actually that minute to pause, to think, even though it feels like slowing down, you’re saying that that actually could enhance the overall business versus just doing constantly JF: (27:17) Must enhance it. How can you know where you’re heading? Would it be a tragedy if you were on full steam for seven years heading in a direction and you never even took some time to say, is this the right direction that I’m heading full steam for seven years? Or is this the right way? I want my data flow or how, who am I bringing to this business? How am I treating the people that work with me? And for me, these are contemplative questions that great leaders ask, but they must have white space to do that. RV: (27:48) Is there a, is there a amount or a percentage, right. You know, and I, I think this is so relevant, personal, personal brand, right? It’s like, and then onto any entrepreneur, let us, like, you could be shooting a video, writing a blog, preparing a presentation, building a funnel, like answering your emails, writing a book, like customer service. JF: (28:13) And that could all be like within a couple hours. I know. Is there like a proportion of RV: (28:18) Time? Like, how do I know what’s the right? Like, how do I actually practice? You know? JF: (28:26) Yes. And that’s that question is the perfect litmus test of our entire personality. Isn’t it? Like, you want to know, you want to know the formula, right? So that’s yes. RV: (28:38) Block it on my digital calendar and you know how you could color code it. I’m going to color code at white in honor. JF: (28:44) Yeah. Juliette actual white space. So the people that like that more regimented approach, you can just start with two minutes, a couple of times a day, it’ll feel like the longest two minutes of your entire life, just begin to experience stopping the machine and restarting the machine. So for those of us that are more fluid and less structured, it’s just about an interstitial pausing. 10 seconds here. A minute there, 30 seconds here, this incremental and interstitial use of white space is extremely powerful. It’s also the majority of the way that I personally use this tool as an overbusy Energizer bunny, kind of a person. So that interstitial use can be amazingly. It can be you’re finishing work and your kid needs you. And you say just a minute and you spend 30 seconds transitioning from business hat to daddy hat. And that’s all it is now longer stretches of white space, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes with a legal pad, deeper white space away from your technology to think deeply about your business or brainstorm or vision. Beautiful, beautiful, and important. But the life saving element of white space is the interstitial sip. That’s what makes us learn that mechanism again, of stop the machine, start the machine. That’s all we want to do is step off for a period of time. RV: (30:20) Yeah. I mean, I liked that idea of a sip. Just like a sip of water, like water. I feel like there’s a fear that is underneath this. That’s driving that leg. If I’m not maximizing every single second, like it’s all gonna come crashing down. JF: (30:37) Yep. And it is come. I mean, that philosophy is crashing down all around us. Now five months post the novel coronavirus because teams are now working 12 to 14 hours a day because they can. So when the office is in your bedroom, there’s no off switch and there wasn’t an off switch before. So actually one way of thinking about it is all of our corporate pals have now joined the entrepreneurial pain that we’ve all lived with for a very long time, which is work can be all the time where can be all the time. And there’s mental health challenges and focus, challenges and creativity, challenges, and sustainability challenges to that. The corporate people are starting to see it. It’s harder for us to see it because we have that bravado of I’m an entrepreneur. I just have to keep going. RV: (31:22) And if you’re a chronic like, you know, checklist or the idea is not that you have to retreat, you know, you’re not retreating into meditation. It’s just thinking as a business tool about going like, Hey, before I dive into my email, like, let me just process what’s going on? Where am I at? What’s the next most, you know, best use of my time. And JF: (31:48) It can be. So the whole purpose of white space is that it is an open container. Now your saying one possible application of it, thoughtfulness as a business tool, another possible application, I’ll just rifle through a whole bunch of them is daydreaming, which has been proven to lead us to wonderful creative places, appreciation time to combat some of the pain and challenge by looking at what’s wonderful recuperation, literally just doing nothing, letting your body come back during that a little bit of open recuperate. It better be, it better be, you know, we have, we have the dopamine from our devices. We have caffeine, we have energy. We have passion. We have a lot of different ways that we can goose up adrenaline to keep going, but the price paid at some point will arrive for never turning it off. And the, you know, the deep white space that I, one place I’m really, really good at deep white space, even though I tend to take my sips incrementally, is that on those vacations, when I take a vacation, the cell phone is in the bottom of the suitcase. JF: (33:01) It is dead and it is off and there is no email. And it’s the only way that I can come back after the kind of exertion I put into my work month. So I’m a big advocate of when you do disconnect, really disconnect. I think a vacation kind of like driving from New York to LA and you want to get to a different destination, but every time you touch base with work, even once in the morning, you have to drive back to New York. So you never get farther and farther and farther away to have perspective and look back. And that’s why people who do take disconnected vacations, even if they have to be staycations, that’s why they do come back with innovations for the business and great new creative ideas. Cause they’ve gone away. You can’t really go away. If you go back for a visit every 12 hours. RV: (33:52) Fascinating, fascinating. And I could, that would totally apply to any creative work, writing a book. You know, it just, just makes sense to like, to be away from all the busy-ness to just kind of sit and think, or, you know, recoup or daydream JF: (34:11) And writing the book has been a great example. If I take these book day retreats where I’ll do 12 hours in a shot on and off with my white space breaks, but, but a lot for me, and it is so tempting to spend all of the working minutes of that period, working to spend all the working minutes of that period in a document editing, writing on book related phone calls, interviews. But if I’m willing to really just close it all down and think about what do I want to make sure that I don’t not say in this book and what do I want to really make sure that what part of my heart and my willing to be a little shockingly authentic with so that in a business book, you’re crossing a line to realness in a way that people aren’t anticipating those kinds of thoughts can only happen in white space. And they can only happen when you create separation between you and your product. And that can’t happen while you’re in it. RV: (35:11) I love that. I love that. So Juliet, where, where do people go to connect with you and stay plugged in and, you know, be on the list to be notified when the book out and all that JF: (35:24) [email protected] we would love to hear from you. And you’re welcome to reach me personally, a [email protected]. RV: (35:31) Love that. So we’ll link. We will link that up. We’ll keep you all posted. When the book comes out, clearly you can see the application. Y’all I know you’re listening going. Yes. I need white space in my life. Well, we wish you and your family the best be safe while you’re out there traveling and then have your one big adventure Juliet, and then hopefully we’ll get to see you in person soon.

Ep 93: The Three Components of Becoming a Highly Booked Speaker and Thought Leader with Josh Linkner | Recap Episode

RV: (00:00) Hey, welcome to this special recap edition of the influential personal brand. We’re breaking down the interview today with our longtime friend, Dan Miller, who I absolutely just love. I just love his energy, him and Joanne are awesome. And we met them on a cruise a few years ago and I’ve just been, been friends. So we got your top three takeaways from AJ and from me. So, get us going. AJV: (00:32) Yeah, I think the first thing he said this like really close to the beginning of the interview and I loved it. And he said if somebody or three different people ask me the same question more than three times, I’ll just make a product for it. I think the whole concept of what should I make a product about or where do I find content is really simply answered when you just figure out what do people already come to you for? And so instead of repeating the exact same thing over and over and over again, why not turn it into a product, a course or a video series or a book or a coaching program or certification or all the things that he has done and is doing really, he said most of that comes from just, you know, if I get asked the same question more than three times, then I really consider turning that into a product. RV: (01:24) Yep. I love that. I was one of my takeaways too, is just, you know, the power of listening to your audience. And I think one of the, one of the techniques or strategies that you can use is to ask your audience. So in his case, he’s just listening. But the other thing you can do, like if you need content ideas or you need product ideas, or if you need copy for like your sales page, send a survey to your audience, ask them some questions about what they want and what they’re struggling with, and then take their words that they write back to you and use some of their language in CRE in actually marketing what you’re doing and create a product for them. So that was one of my takeaways too. I just love that. It’s such a simple, a simple, practical, actionable thing that any of us can do, you know, right away. So that was good. So what was your second one AJV: (02:17) Second one was this concept of not doing the new and trendy thing that everyone is doing. And he said, I’ll try to recap it here. He said, but I, I resist the temptation to do every single new and trendy thing that is out there. And he talked about, he said, could I be missing out on lots of money? Maybe do I care? Not really. And I think that’s really just really powerful. It’s like, if what you’re doing is working, why would you derail? What’s working to do just what everyone else is doing. That’s new and trendy. And one of the things that I thought was really insightful and something that you don’t hear a lot about, he said, now I’m not saying anything is wrong with funnels or webinars or with anything he said, but you hear all these people all over social media promoting, I made six figures, seven figures in this launch. AJV: (03:10) He said, what you don’t hear about is how much money they had to give back and refunds. And I thought that was really interesting because you hear a ton of people. You see a ton of ads. It’s like how I made six figures in this funnel, or there’s this one out. And I don’t, I won’t say what it’s called, but it’s how do you have a seven figure funnel? And then he talks about how he came up with this whole thing. And yeah, probably you could do that. I’m sure people are doing that all the time every day. And Dan said, but what you don’t hear about is how much of that they’re actually giving back in refunds because a buyer’s remorse or they didn’t get what they thought it was, or it was a little bit misleading or a little bit of a bait and switch. And I’m not saying everyone is but I do think there’s some accuracy in the fact that you hear a lot of the revenue promoted and that a lot of the backend of what was it even profitable and how much did you actually give back and refunds? And I thought that was just very insightful. RV: (04:09) Yeah. I mean, you got the refunds, you also have affiliate fees and, you know, Facebook ads and paying your graphic designer. And, you know, at the end of the day, it’s like, how, how much do you really keep in? Which is but I think his thing into your point is more about the reputation and like the, AJV: (04:26) Oh yeah, no, I love when he said, he said it, he said, I’m way more about building a consistent audience than having huge infusions of cash said, I’m way more about the consistency time, over time, over time, that will last me 20 years than I am about this one time, big infusion of of cash. And everyone is different. Perhaps you are someone who’s looking for that big infusion of cash and like go for it, do it. But I loved what he said. It’s about playing the long game and making this a, a true, a true business versus this one time push. RV: (05:00) Yeah. So for me, the other thing that I thought was fascinating you know, we teach something to our brand new members that we call the fast cash formula, which is how do you, if you need to make money quickly. And we talk about how coaching a lot of times is the fastest way. If you need to replace an income is to offer coaching. And when he was telling his story, that was how he started. And still to this day, he does one day a month of one-on-one coaching work. And I love that because he was a real life example of what we talk about that, you know, coaching is the fastest path to cash in terms of replacing a large you know, income need, but it’s the least scalable longterm. And, and yet, so he sort of toward the story about how he started with that. RV: (05:51) And then after he had done enough coaching, he created a course for the people who couldn’t afford coaching. And, and so he was teaching this course and then people invited him to come speak because there were people seeing him teach the course. And that, you know, basically out of that coaching work came his content which became also his business model. And I just think that’s a really great way to do it is to do the work, to kind of get your hands in there. And obviously we love coaching. We, we believe in coaching in the power of one-on-one and I just, I just thought that was really encouraging. And, and, you know, he, he does have multiple streams of income, but it’s been developed over years and it’s, it really started from one great body of work, you know, that he flushed out with coaching and real life scenarios then applied it to a course, you know, then applied it to live events and speaking. So I thought that was just a great, a great example. AJV: (06:51) Yeah. There’s a great evolution of evolution. That’s a great one. And I think that’s somewhat similar to my third and final point, which is which I thought is very indicative of what you hear a lot. But yet there’s this mystery around it. He said, but I don’t count on any income from my books. And, you know, in his book is super successful and has been out there, just did a 20 year edition, right? 20Th year, RV: (07:18) 20Th or 25th. AJV: (07:20) Yeah. But a long time, right on. He said, but here’s what I have found. He said, it’s not the book itself that makes all the income, it’s the actual content within the book. So the book is the calling card. It’s the credibility source. Then not to say that you won’t make income. He just doesn’t count on that in his forecast or his budget. But it’s the content of that book that he then takes that and turns it into all these different curriculums. It’s a coaching curriculum. It’s a certification curriculum. It’s a course, it’s a video series, it’s a live event. It’s all these different things that are all circulated around the content of the book. And the book is at the center, but probably isn’t, what’s bringing in the most income for him. However, from that, there is just this entire huge circle of all these things that are moving to make this very successful, a very healthy business, even though most of the income is not from the center of it, which is the book it’s from all these other ancillary income streams that have become his primary revenue. RV: (08:27) Yeah. That’s good, good perspective on the book. For me, my third takeaway, which he talked a little bit about, but it’s more of, of what we know about him and Joanne behind the scenes. And I don’t know that he said this directly, but every time I’m with Dan and Joanne, it always occurs to me how they build their life or, or they build work around their life. They don’t build their life around their work. And so it’s, it’s one of the great possibilities of a personal brand is to be able to like fit work in and around your life. And it’s hard to do cause when you’re an entrepreneur, especially early on, it’s like a lot of times, you know, we’re kind of his life, but you, you want to get out of that and you can get out of that. And AJV: (09:14) I think that goes to a lot of what he talked about, where he resists the temptation to do all of the new and trendy things. Because, well, for what reason, it’s like, are you living to work? Are you working to live? And he talked a lot about his time and his schedule, but I think that is a part of it is resisting the temptation to do. RV: (09:34) Yeah. And I, and I hope for you, like, w w I wonder, I would bet if we could take all the podcast listeners and ask if you’ve heard of Dan Miller, I bet less than half of you have actually heard of him. You’ve probably heard of some of our other guests yet. He has one of the biggest businesses of everyone we’ve ever had on the podcast. And, and his example speaks to the power of steady consistency and just trust and playing the long game and plodding along. He’s the tortoise man. That’s a, that’s such a great that’s a great metaphor. And, and, and we mean that AJV: (10:14) It was his, he said, he said, I’m the tortoise. RV: (10:18) Yeah. That’s. And, and that is, you know, and we say that in the most honoring way, AJV: (10:23) He said it so we can say it. RV: (10:26) But even to that extent, it doesn’t mean you have to be slow. It’s just, it’s the idea of consistency. You don’t have to be the person with a million followers. And, and you know, this, these huge extravagant launches and given away cars, and like, you can do those things like, but, but you don’t have to be that person in order to be successful. Like you can just do the right thing for a really long time, and it will work out like you can’t fail if you just pour back into people’s lives. So I’m as encouraged by that. AJV: (11:01) Yeah. Well, I think it just, in general, there are a million different ways to build your personal brand. And Dan gives a one, one really great perspective of how to do it. And there are many other different perspectives that you will hear from other guests, but to what Roy is saying, it’s like, it’s, it’s all about. And what we talk about a lot, it’s playing the long game and Dan is a great example of the long game. RV: (11:26) Yeah. So there you have it. So hopefully you’re playing the long game and you’ll keep coming back here. We’re going to keep working to provide amazing guests for you and hopefully useful insights. We’re so glad that you’re here. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.