Category: BRANDING

Ep 208: How to be Funnier with Darren LaCroix

RV (00:07):
Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/podcast. We hope to talk to you soon.
RV (00:54):
Well, if you go back to the very beginning of Rory Vaden speaking career, one of my mentors told me I needed to join Toastmasters, and that was how I would get stage time. And shortly after I joined Toastmasters, I learned about a contest called the world championship of public speaking. And one of the legends of Toastmasters who I then made my mentor is who you’re about to hear from today. His name’s Darren LaCroix. He was the 2001 world champion of public speaking for Toastmasters, but he was one of my personal mentors early in my career. In fact if you come to our world-class presentation craft event, and then I start talking about humor, I share the story of how I spent my last thousand dollars on buying a ticket to Darren’s class and then buying an airplane flight to go see him in California in a hotel.
RV (01:50):
It was like the last I had in my checking account as I was coming out of graduate school. And it was the best thing that I ever did. Darren’s training on humor, which is not the only thing he talks about. He teaches all sorts of things around presentations, mechanics, and business. And we’ll talk about stage time university and some of the other things that he’s got going on, but, but that commitment to come and spend a few days with him changed my entire career. And the things that I learned from Darren have stuck with me for years and years and years. And we’ve never actually made the time to go back and do an interview. And I saw him last week at the national speakers association. I said, buddy, we got to bring you on to share the secrets. So welcome to the show.
DL (02:32):
Hey, thrilled to be here. Rory and I, as I told you, before we even started, I am so proud of you and what you’ve done and what you’ve created. There’s nothing cooler to a mentor than seeing the students surpass the mentor. You have stolen the pebble from my hand.
RV (02:50):
Well, I really appreciate that, man. I you know, you and ed Tate and you know, Craig Valentine and Mark Brown, I mean, you guys were, I really learned the craft of speaking and specifically with you. And when I often tell your story, I, it most comes up just around humor because that was, that was the thing. Like for me, that seemed the most unrealistic. Like I knew when I said, if I’m going to win the world championship of public speaking, like you have to be funny. And I said, I’m not funny like that. So that was, that was like this big roadblock. And also to be a professional speaker. I was like, this is going to meet my biggest dilemma. Like my biggest barrier is that I’m not funny. And then I met you and you had gone through all of this work and this research of figuring out and making it, making it practical of going, actually, this is a skill it’s not, it’s not just talent. So do you still believe that? I know it’s been 20 years since
DL (03:59):
I believe it more than ever, you know, that’s the one thing you’re either born funny or you’re not, and that’s a, that’s a big myth. I remember when I first was working up the courage to ask a comedian for advice to go through this crazy thing. Cause I just like, you was not funny. I was quiet. I was shy. I had no business being on a stage and I just decided I was at such a low point in my life. I’ve got to just try it because I can’t live with the regret of wondering what if, and I asked this comedian, that was, he was a headliner, never been to a comedy show before. And I said, what do I need to do? And he asked me a question. He said, are you funny? I said, no. And he said, good. And I’m like, good.
DL (04:40):
What do you mean? Good? And he was the one that first explained that people who are the class clown, people are the naturally funny people. He said, that’s one skillset. He said, but if you handed them a microphone and put them in front of a group of 100 strangers, they couldn’t make them laugh. He said, but that skillset can be learned. You know, I turned into Scooby doo. I’m like, what? You know, he just handed me an ounce of hope. And as you know, just like I told you, number one, he said, go get the book. And I’m like book, there’s a book about standup comedy. And so, yeah, of course his books about everything, but I wasn’t thinking that way. And you and I both got the book by Judy Carter, stand up comedy, the book and going through the exercises. I realized comedians don’t want you to know that they actually go through a lot of work to get there. But what I learned was the structure of comedy, the structure of humor and that just like anything can be learned. And eventually I was able to find a way to make it work for me and my style.
RV (05:44):
Yeah. Well, and I, I did read that book as well as every other book that you recommended. Yeah. And then, and then wrote one. And, and I, I actually, after I went through all those, I, one of the reasons that I wrote, and this is, you know, Darren knows, but nobody else does because my very first book, people think take the stairs was my first book. Because we set the world up to be that way. It was my first traditionally published book and our team, you know, we did the huge bestseller launch and all that stuff. But I actually wrote a book called how to be funny, to make more money, which was a self published book before that Darren remembers, that was how I paid my bills in the early days. And I was disappointed with a lot of the books that I read because they weren’t as straightforward and practical.
RV (06:29):
They felt still artsy and not science-y. But when you taught it to me, I felt like, yeah, there’s there’s structure here. There’s a, there’s a, there’s a systematic process to the, to the, to the whole game of, of of comedy. So can you talk about what that is? You know, just like what, what, what is the premise like you even say that because you go, even the class clown, can’t grab a mic and suddenly make everybody laugh. I think that is that’s worth everybody knowing. And so when you dive in or you think about, okay, what is it then that makes an audience laugh and what is the work that comedians are doing that they don’t want us to know about as a part of like, you know, getting to that place.
DL (07:17):
Yeah. I have presenters and speakers come to me like I got to write a funny speech. How do I write a funny speech, especially in Toastmasters, around humorous speech contest time. And they’re like, what’s funny, what’s, what’s a subject. What’s a funny subject. I’m like, I don’t know. I don’t know your life. And just like you and I went through the Judy Carter book, she said, what are your flaws? What are your failures? So Craig Valentine. And I say, what are your failures, your flaws, and your first, your failures, your flaws and your first. So again, it’s understanding the process, a class clown. If you force them to go up on stage in front of a hundred strangers, what they would do is they’d go do movie quotes. They’d do characters, they’d rip off Robin Williams or Jerry Seinfeld. And they’d tell other people’s material.
DL (08:03):
Well, that’s, that’s illegal. It’s not right. And you would never get booked as a speaker or a comedian if you’re doing other people’s material. I remember in my early days of standup by Saara, I was studying Robin Williams, so much word for word and writing out his jokes. And I was doing an open mic night. I saw this guy go up for his very first time. And he was literally doing Robin Williams, word for word. And he bombed. And that was a whoa, it’s not just the words. It’s the character, it’s a persona. And it’s also coming from your life. You know, one of my first jokes written out of the Judy Carter book was what’s a failure. Well, my subway sandwich shop, you know, that was a huge failure. And then she walks you through a process and understanding the delivery part of it, the attitude part of it.
DL (08:53):
I think, you know, Rory, when people telling stories, whether they’re funny or not, but it’s that storytelling bringing it to the point of dialogue where we hear thoughts or their internal thoughts, or we hear the conversation. That’s where the vibrant emotion is. So I looked at my $60,000 debt and she said, okay, brag about it. I’m like what brag about it? And that’s not how normal people think. So if you’d agree with this, that funny people think differently than if we want to be funny, or we need to think the way funny people think. And what we’re saying is we’ve got to look at it the way they look at it. And that’s what you discovered. That’s what I discovered was there’s processes that comedians and humorous go through to create the humor. And then there’s still some testing and tweaking and testing and tweaking great jokes.
DL (09:50):
Aren’t written, they’re rewritten, great speeches. Aren’t written, they’re rewritten. But most people, when you see somebody on their own comedy special, or on one of the late night comedy shows or tonight show or something, you’re seeing the culmination of years and years of one little five minute routine, you don’t see the work. And I think that’s the thing. If you’re willing to put in the work, you could make something funny. You know, the fastest way would be to hire a humorous joke writer, but still you’ve got to own the material they’ve got to interview you. They’ve got to dig it out of you. And then you could have somebody quote, unquote, punch it up, but you still have to deliver it. And so the Judy Carter joke, as you know, my Mark Brown story, that wasn’t even in my championship speech. And mark said, Hey, you know, your speech is about failure.
DL (10:40):
We need a failure. And I’m like, oh well, I used to do this joke about my shop. And he said, go ahead and do it. And I delivered it right there in the board room. No one else is around. And I said, you know, I don’t want to brag, but I took a $60,000 debt. And in six short months I doubled that debt. And so, you know, but it’s a bragging about failing and without the structure and understanding from Judy Carter and going through the exercises like, but when you go through the exercises, what you’re doing is training your brain to look for those things. I mean, you know, you probably watch comedy now and after you learned it, you can see the joke coming. You can see the twist, you can see the punchline. Why? Because you’ve trained your brain to think in a funny way.
RV (11:27):
Yeah. And I, I think, you know, you’re, you’ve, you’ve mentioned a couple of components here that I want to draw out for everybody because you know, the way that I’ve kind of even teed up this conversation is the writing of the joke, right? Like, okay, how do you write the joke? But you’ve already touched on that. A huge part of it is the delivery of the joke and the persona. But then there’s this other part, which I P I think people overlook and even I overlooked for a really long time, which is that identifying the opportunity as the first, like the first key step is to identify, oh, there’s something funny here. And I think it’s like, if you could, it’s, if you can capture it, like, if you can set this alarm, like, ah, there’s something around it, and then you can run it through the mechanics of writing it.
RV (12:20):
And then you get enough stage time, which, you know, I’m surprised we’ve made it a few minutes into this conversation. And we haven’t talked about the Darren LaCroix mantra is stage time, stage, time, stage, time. I mean, that was the thing that was just drilled into my head and thousands of Toastmasters over years and years and years just hear Darren say stage time, stage, time, stage, time. Cause that’s the delivery part. Like you can’t learn the delivery part without just practicing, but coming back to identify, because I’d like to talk about writing and then maybe delivery a little bit as well. Now you, you said earlier, you know, your failures, your flaws and your first. That’s awesome. I’ve never heard you say that before. Where was, where was that? 20 years ago when I needed it. So are there any other tips you have around identifying the opportunity? Cause it’s, I think that’s kind of what, what, I didn’t know, which I do now, and you’re alluding to it is that there, nobody just sits down and goes and writes this brilliant line. Right? It’s, it’s a process that we take people through and if we can go, how do we, how do we identify? Is there anything else around like us noticing it? Yeah.
DL (13:32):
And I know your audience, there’s a lot of people who are presenters. There are entrepreneurs, there are coaches here listening. So one of the ways is if you can create some humor for your specific audience and we’re, we, I don’t know if you knew this early on. When I came from a stand-up comedy into keynote speaking, I basically had no speech. It was just, what is the humerus? So what I would do is I took my clean jokes and I turned them into corporate jokes. And then I was just, I didn’t have enough content for 45 minutes. So what I did is I overcompensated and I customized about them because I still had a day job. And I had a lot of time. Cause I wasn’t speaking that much. So what I would do, one of my secrets leading into what your question is, is I would always call up the clients.
DL (14:22):
And I would ask for 10 names of people who are being in the audience, not just the board of directors, I want the people on the ground, whatever that means in that organization or association. And I want to interview them. And what I ask them is what are your pet peeves? And then I’ll ask them, what are your frustrations? It’s pretty much the same question, but it actually kind of like jumps into a little different part of their brain because humor, okay. Different. Let me differentiate bringing comedy and humor. Comedy cuts down, humor, lifts up comedy. It cuts down means there’s a victim means where, you know, we’re making fun of someone. Well, you can’t really do that in the corporate world, unless it’s the competition. That’s, you know the exception then they’ll love you, but humor lifts up. So when we mean lifting up, what are we talking about?
DL (15:12):
Well, we’re talking about a release of tension. So finding the humor is where is the tension? Where is the tension in their lives? So if I’m talking to a bank, okay. At that bank, where is there tension? If I’m talking to entrepreneurs, where is there tension? Okay. So for entrepreneurs, it might be their employees or staff. If I’m talking to employees or staff, it might be the boss. So where is that frustration? So we need to find where the tension is in order to release it, find where it is order to release it. And then one of my favorite principles, I don’t know if I learned this before I worked with you or after, but I call it the registration desk principle. When I go to a convention or conference, when they’re live, I go to the registration desk and when no one’s around, I pull aside the people who are working the desk and I say, why are people complaining about because their complaints are their frustrations.
DL (16:07):
So I’m not looking for one rogue thing I’m looking for. What is that commonality? So just to give you a quick example, one, I was speaking to save international society for the advancement of value. Engineers still don’t know what that is, but that was, and it was in San Antonio, Texas, and you know, every convention and conference, there’s the tension of those people, the engineers, but there’s also the tension of the event. So I was asking them and at first they said, no. And then they said, well, yeah, everybody can’t find a, one of the meeting rooms HASI and the G. And I was like, oh, that’s interesting. Cause all the meeting rooms are in one area, but they had one more meeting room and it was way off the beaten path. So when I walked up there on stage, I said, you know, good morning, Hey, if you’re looking for HASI and the G and boom, okay.
DL (16:58):
Because it is the common frustration. It is top of mind, I got them. And then I just tagged it. I said, just go out the back door, go through the kitchen. It gets a laugh, go out to Crockett avenue, go about a mile and a half down. When you get to the Alamo, take a right. And they were just rolling, but I identified their tension and that would work anywhere else or would it I’m speaking at the Rio and I was speaking for contours express. These are owners, entrepreneurs, owners of a workout place that used to be, I don’t even know if they’re still in existence, but they were the, the competition to curves, you know? So a woman’s workout place and they’re all the owners and they’re here in Vegas at the Rio. If you know the Rio if you don’t know the Rio, there’s like one tall of rooms where all the rooms are.
DL (17:52):
And then the convention center, you’re going to walk a mile and a half down a hallway, take a right walk, another mile and a half, take a left, walk another it’s far. And so the cool thing about being a middle-aged bald guy is I blend in and nobody notices me before I go on stage. So I just go in and I’m listening, I’m listening. And I hear women. It was 99% women. I hear women in the hallway. They’re wearing their heels. They’re like, wow, this is a long walk. Oh my gosh, I should’ve wore my sneakers, dah, dah, dah, dah. And so I go up on stage and I say, Hey, welcome to the Rio. Isn’t it beautiful. And everybody claps. And I say, I don’t know if you know this or not, but Rio is actually a native American term, which stands for long flip and hall.
RV (18:40):
And in that moment, boom, boom.
DL (18:43):
He loved it. And you know, it won’t work in anywhere else unless there’s a similar frustration. So
RV (18:51):
Go ahead. Well, how do you, so, so I love this, cause this is, you could add this to your list of apps, right? You’ve got your first, your failures your, your flaws, your failures, your first, the frustrations. So like, so how do you write it now? What is one thing that you know, these are, these are such great examples. And in my experience, this is also true. That anything that is real-time in the moment, it’s like, it doesn’t even have to be funny. Like, all you have to do is mention Hacienda G it doesn’t matter how you get there. You just say HASI and to G you know, couldn’t find it. Like, it, it, it’s hilarious is that basically all there
DL (19:32):
Is it’s about them. Well, that is easy. That’s a first step. And the more you do it, but again, just like you, the more you study it, the more you can identify, but you also have to be careful that you’re not upsetting the event planner. You know, if you’re brought in as a speaker. So I always go and have a conversation with the person who paid me, not the person who works for the person who paid me and I run it by them just to make sure I said, look, they’re already upset. They can’t find Hacienda. G like, if I can relieve that tension, you’re going to get less complaints later on. If you don’t want me to bring that up, that’s fine. It’s your call. So I kind of run it by them. And usually they’re like, oh, please do something. Cause they’re complaining.
DL (20:16):
Anyway. So, but as you know, going through the books like that, what most people don’t know, but comedians do is that there are formulas. There are comedy formulas that we learn that you go through. So Rio is a native American term means long flip and hallway. Well, Robin Williams, believe it or not, even though he’s unbelievable at what he does, nobody was better at improv than him. And he would just, you know, fire things off like that photographic memory, but even used formulas when the formula works. So knowing the formula and then how you can take that frustration and pop it into a formula. So for example, Robin Williams had a joke that was a divorce coming from the Latin term, meaning to rip a man’s genitalia out through his wallet. But it’s the same exact formula. What’s the word. Okay. Rio. They were all in his divorce. And then you take the term and I call this, I didn’t invent the formula. I just noticed it. And I named it redefining the redefining formula. So I redefine a word named that the audience is aware of, but I redefine it tying into the frustration of the audience. Right. So that’s just one example, but knowing the formula, so first step is like, Hey, go and learn all the formulas and then you’ll start noticing patterns. Yeah.
RV (21:48):
Yeah. And, and, you know you teach the formulas, we teach them that we’ve come to. But you know, I think all of them, all of these formulas kind of come back to this one idea, which is around the, like basically predicting the brain predicts what it thinks it’s going to hear. And when you say something different than that, that’s kind of like, that’s kind of like the twist now, the thing that’s cool about the F the frustration part of this is like, you don’t even have to know the formula. You just have to, you just have to say it. Once, you know, once you know, the formulas, it’s super powerful because you can, you can, you can kind of like quickly fill in the blanks for things, but on, on that one, w would you say that half, half the battle, at least half the battle is just identifying, this is what everyone’s talking about. This is what they’re frustrated about it. And you just kind of like, bring it up. Yeah. Yeah.
DL (22:43):
That’s 80% of it. I would say because you’re, what’s top of mind set up and a punchline. So a setup is already in the mind of the audience. So what we’re looking for is what are they thinking about? What’s top of mind. Now, if I go back to a convention or a conference two years ago, of course, COVID, isn’t even on the radar screen now it’s top of mind, but now it’s also over done. You want to puke when you hear the word pivot, you’re like, oh yeah, that’s a brilliant idea. So, anyway, it’s knowing what’s top of mind, but again, asking the question. So frustrations change over time and going back to what you just said, the twist, the best analogy I’ve ever heard was George Carlin. He said, it’s like a train going down, a train track. You can see clearly and exactly where the train is going.
DL (23:31):
You see the tracks, you know, the train is going that way. We laugh when our mind is successfully tricked. We laugh when our mind is successfully tricked. And what that means is we laugh when the train is derailed. When we an expectation, what I say, the way I define it as a setup is creating an expectation. A punchline is changing that expectation. So in my championship speech, I talked about Dr. Goddard’s rocket launch, and I said, the rocket took off and it went vertically and I do a big motion, really enthusiastic. And then I say, landed in Auburn. So I create the expectation the rocket went far, but then I do a very matter of fact delivery that it landed in Auburn,
RV (24:18):
Right. Where it took off. Yeah. And that’s, I mean, there’s, there’s there, there’s so many great moments in that speech, which I think is that it’s on, is that on YouTube? Can you go just Google, Darren LaCroix, 2001 world championship speed is still, is still on there. So not, not all every year is up there, but certain ones are, and yours is one of them
DL (24:37):
For the rights to put it up there. Yeah.
RV (24:39):
It’s just, it’s it’s it is literally just classic. I mean, seeing the, the punchline after a punchline. The, the, the other thing that I wanted to talk about in terms of identifying slash writing is callbacks. So frustrations and callbacks to me have a very similar I guess like characteristic of one another, which is that you don’t really have to know the formula. You pretty much just have to comment on the thing and everybody laughs you know, that you got frustration. So can you, can you talk about what a callback is? Cause I think callbacks are one of the easiest ways to get laughs immediately, if you literally just know what it is and just like, you just gotta like flip the switch in your brain and go, okay, I need to be looking for callbacks. Can you, can you talk, talk us through the concept? Yeah. When
DL (25:34):
I get to a convention or a conference, I try to get there and spend a day with the people at the convention, just sitting there listening and observing. But what I’m looking for is what are those big emotional moment or what are the funny moments? Like if a speaker has a funny line and it’s lampshade, like I want to in my speech, see if I can hide it, but then bring up lampshade because it’s gotta be an automatic trigger. So a callback is literally calling back or referring back to a word or a moment. Now we don’t want to just call back to anything. We want to call back to either big emotion or big laughs. So I always, if I’m not able to be there a day ahead of time, I will literally walk around asking people, Hey, what was the funniest moment? What, what do you remember? And it’s looking for commonality, that’s the key I’m looking for commonality. If one person thought one thing was funny. That is not enough. We’re looking for that commonality. So, eh, I don’t know if you were there, but in 2002 I was speaking, I was doing ouch, my winning at the NSA convention from the main stage and it was in Arizona and they had this big opening pomp and circumstance and a guy’s riding in on a horse. Do you remember this
RV (26:57):
Guys? I don’t know if I was there.
DL (26:59):
Okay. Guys riding in on a horse, playing a banjo and it was a big pomp and circumstance opening. It was great. He was awesome. He was talented and the horse goes right up to the front of the stage and he’s playing his banjo well in the middle of the song, the horse poops, but he’s got, but he’s got a bucket on, but the horse overshoots the bucket. Oh. And now, and so yeah, it was a funny moment. It’s like, Hey, it’s a horse. That’s what horses do. So I got Michael on, I don’t know if you know, Michael on a pass world champion, ed Tate and a couple other people. And I sat down and I was like, okay, tomorrow morning, I’m speaking on this stage. How can I use that? How can I call back to that moment? So I’m looking at the opening of my speech.
DL (27:44):
And if you remember, I CA well, I came out and I follow my face in my winning speech. And I give Potter my speech intentionally from the stage. So I do it the same way. I always do it. And then I just go, is this where the horse did it? And it was an 11 second laugh. It was the biggest laugh I’ve probably ever got then people in NSA, still talk about that moment. I’m like, this was a setup from God, you know, like to be able to do my speech the next day, where I fall on my face and the horse pooped the night before and everybody, sorry, you know, that’s the thing is if everybody didn’t see it, it, wouldn’t be funny, really looking for that universal callback in that situation. So if there’s a speaker who talks about microphones and you know, the microphone fell in the toilet, you know, you want to, okay, how can I use it? How can I call back to that? So you look in the middle of your speech or maybe at the opening, how you can connect. Cause it’s taking that emotionally charged moment and tapping into the goodness, the good energy of that moment. So it’s one of the simplest, most powerful things that anyone can do. The callback.
RV (28:55):
Yeah. That’s and if, if I were to follow you, I would go, oh, Darren LaCroix laid off, fell on his face and was laying on stage. That would be an opportunity potentially for a call back. Like, I wouldn’t know exactly in that moment, just like you didn’t in about the horse, but you go, this is a big moment that everybody saw. Everybody will remember this moment. And so that’s where you identify, I love what you said. I did not know that backs, that backstory that you said, okay, you identified it. And then you grab some of your buddies and said, Hey, this happened, how could I use this? And again, it doesn’t have to be the, the beautiful part about both frustrations and callbacks is they have to be brilliantly written, like 90% of the game is just like mentioning it. And I, I love that. So I want to ask you about delivery too, but before we do that, so I got one last question about delivery. Darren, where should people go? I know we’ve had, this has been an awesome deep dive in, into the world of humor, but you teach storytelling stage mechanics, like all the components of also, you know, creating speeches, getting books for your first speeches. Where, where do you want to send people to, if they want to learn more about what you’re up to? Sure. Thanks for
DL (30:19):
Asking. If you want to know the top 10 mistakes speaking mistakes, I’ve been coaching for two decades all around the world, executives, speakers, coaches, and just go to be a sponge.com and it’s a free download. It’s a PDF and yes, you would get my newsletter. So if you want to just get the PDF and opt off, no worries. Just do it. And also the top 10 virtual mistakes. If you want to know about my [email protected],
RV (30:47):
I love that. So we’ll put a link there to be a sponge.com. You can download that. All right. So we talked about identifying a couple of tips on writing when it comes to delivery, what would you say is the, the, the biggest thing that you have to know or understand about delivering the moment like delivering the punchline? You know, the joke, the set up like just the, you know, standing on stage and saying, saying the bit.
DL (31:16):
Yeah, to me, the biggest thing is understanding the power of dialogue. You know, I had been a Toastmaster for seven years in four clubs work my butt off part-time professional, but it wasn’t until I met my coach, Mark Brown, where he showed me that I was telling my stories in the past tense. What I needed to do is bring the audience into the moment. In the first version of my speech, I told people about telling my parents, I wanted to be a comedian. He said, no, no, no. Bring us to the moment, let us hear it, which is dialogue. And then piggybacking on that, my delivery, like one of the places I stand out, every speaker has their skills as a coach and as a speaker and one of mine is character delivery. But what I do well is I convey the emotion, body language, not gesture.
DL (32:04):
A gesture is a rehearse body movement that has no emotional connection to the moment. So what I teach people to do is go watch a Pixar movie, but keep an eye on the eyes of the two dimensional character on stage, because they, the shape of the eye changes with the emotion of the character. When we’re delivering, we need to say it in dialogue, whether it’s internal or external, but we need to convey the emotion of the moment. And then the third biggest thing is we need to show a shift of emotion. So if the story, if we’re telling a story for business purposes, for entertainment purposes, the heart of the story, there’s a shift in emotion. So I always get people, identify the emotion at the beginning of the story and the emotion at the end of the story. And if there’s no change of emotion, that’s not the story.
DL (32:58):
You have the wrong part. There has to be some shift and at least one character. So to show that, you know, you can record yourself and go back and watch the recording shut off the sound and would, you know the emotion of the character. Now, you don’t, I’m animated, but that’s just me and my style. You’ve got to do it your way in your style. But when I went home to tell my parents, I want to be a comedian on stage. It was. So I was all excited. Imagine, you know, my parents’ reaction after stretching their budget to help me through college. And I go home and I walked in the door, mom, dad, I want to be a comedian.
DL (33:37):
I was met by silence. Ouch. So if you’re listening to the podcast, you couldn’t see my face change, but you probably heard it in my voice. Same thing. They’re connected. So I come in excited. So if I was to break down that story, just break down your story, look at your characters, name, each of the character and that one, there’s three characters, mom, dad, and Darren. And what’s their emotion at the beginning. Okay. Mine’s excited. Okay. Mom and dad, they don’t even talk, but they have a beginning emotion, which is they’re anticipating what their son’s going to say. They’re eager. They want to hear. And then boom, I asked that question and mine goes to shock. There’s Kosta, shocked and dismayed. So in that tiny little 17 second story, there’s a shift in at least one character. So if you you’ll be a better storyteller, if you can identify the beginning emotion, the end emotion and make sure you convey it through dialogue, using body language,
RV (34:34):
Love it. Love it, love it. Y’all this is just the beginning. There’s so much to explore here. Obviously we’ve been students of it, our whole career, myself, a J our team. There’s, there’s so much just in the mechanics of presentations that everybody thinks they’re a great speaker. When they, when they come to work with brand builders group, nobody said like, very few people are like, oh yeah, I need help with my speech. Everybody goes, oh, no, I got that part down. And it’s like, you have no idea. Like you have no idea the level of crafting, and it’s not just what Darren does or what we do. Like you said, it’s Robin Williams. It’s Jerry Seinfeld. It’s it is every like the greatest orators on the planet are that way, because they have worked at this. They’ve had stage time, stage, time, stage, time, they’ve been coached through it.
RV (35:25):
They, they, they work onlines, as Darren said, grade lines, aren’t written they’re rewritten. And anyways, Darren, thanks for giving us a little bit of insight into that today. And some practical things that we can do to, to be funnier. I’m so grateful for you, man. And the impact that you’ve had on my life our life, you know, and then yeah, now the, the hundreds of members inside a brand builders group that we’re trying to help, you know, go make a difference in the world through the stuff that you’ve taught us. And man, we just wish you the best. Thanks buddy.
DL (35:55):
Thanks for having me and congratulations on all your success.

Ep 207: How to be a Better Writer with John David Mann | Recap Episode

RV (00:02):
A bit of nostalgia for me on this edition of the influential personal brand podcast recap, because we’re breaking down the interview from John David Mann, who was my very, very, very first media appearance ever. He was the, yes, he was the, he was the first person from the media, whoever interviewed me for an article. And it was a really nice feature article and that was like full, full, full circle. So as you can hear, I’m joined by my partner, a J Vaden, the CEO of brand builders group. We’re talking about how to be a better writer, although as John David Mann says, which I love he’s he, his new ebook is called how to write good or at least good or great. So AIJ why don’t you kick us off, we’ll share our top three takeaways each of, of, of what, what we pulled out and what we learned from John David Mann.
AJV (01:02):
This first one I had, this was so good is that the hero of this story is not a person that the hero of a story is a concept or an idea. I just love the whole idea around not making any one person the hero, because there’s never a hero. There are heroes in every story. And how do you define who is the hero of a story? I think really demotes all of the other contributions to the other characters real life or in fiction. And so removing that fresher away from a person I think just elevates everything that you do and you go, no, the hero is not a person. The hero is a concept or an idea that might be taught by a person, a character, but it is not that person. It’s the idea or the concept itself. I thought it was so good.
RV (01:56):
That’s so good. You, you took it right. You took it right off my list. That was my number one. Takeaway, have the hero be a concept or an idea and not a person and what it made me, what it made me think of. So you know, so one of our events that we have is called bestseller launch plan, and it’s very specific around, we teach the mechanics of how do launches work and how do bestseller lists work and dah, dah, dah. And, you know, we go through this whole thing and this whole system, there’s a ton of stuff to know and learn. It’s just one of my favorite events that we have. But one of the, one of the moments at the, at, towards the very end of the two days is we say there is no such thing as a New York times bestselling author.
RV (02:40):
There is only such a thing as a New York times bestselling team. There, there is only such a thing as a New York times bestselling team. It’s a group of people like that. That that’d be true. I mean you never, nothing great in the world is ever accomplished. Single-Handedly great. So I, yeah, you, you, you nailed it what a cool idea and what a cool way of writing to go. Okay. Even if you have a hero character in the story, the real hero has to be bigger than that, bigger than a character. Cause that’s, that’s the truth of, of, of the real world and the human experience. So yeah, we both have the same first one. Yeah.
AJV (03:26):
And my second one is kind of similar to that along this character idea. And a lot of this conversation right, is around like writing. So writing books, writing articles by writing, but I thought this was really interesting. It’s spend as much time getting to know the character, the voice of whatever. You’re writing a blog and article a, but spend as much time asking yourself who is this character as you do anything else, it’s like a, I think he would have said, is, are you sad? Or he said, I don’t remember, but I know the character better than you know yourself, right? It’s like, ask yourself, like, who is this person? What do they do? What do they love? It’s a find out all the intricacies of this character then start writing. And I think you could do the exact same thing if you’re not writing like fiction, but you’re writing to your audience is you must know your audience that well.
AJV (04:19):
So this is a huge part. And I think what connected to me as we spend a lot of time at brain builders group and our signature content called finding your brain DNA helping you really define who is your core target audience. And we spend a lot of time on this, like, who is your primary audience? Who is your secondary, who is your tertiary? Who is that ideal avatar? And when we get to that ideal avatar, who is in the very core focus, like right here in the middle, like right here you need to know every single thing about this person. And so we have a list of like 30 questions that we go for. It’s like, what are their dreams? What are their hopes? What are their aspirations? What are their fears? What are their limiting beliefs? What questions do they have?
AJV (04:58):
What do they like to eat? Drink? Where did they live? Are they married? Are they single? Are they divorced? Right? It’s like, how many kids do they have? What are their kids’ names are their kids’ ages? Like we really build out a profile and it’s for this reason, right? It’s like, you have to know your audience as well, as you almost said, as good as like, we’ve got good in my brain, as well as you know yourself. So ask yourself, who is my audience, or who is this character? And focus on that before you start worrying about content, because the content is only going to be relevant if you know exactly who it’s for.
RV (05:34):
So once again, you have taken the words out of my mouth on my second, my second takeaway, which is that characters develop through curiosity about who they really are. And w th the so, so amen to everything you just said, that’s exactly what I was thinking. One nuance to add to this conversation is specifically in the area of humor, when you are, when you are trying to add humor to a presentation, a lot of times humor is revealed naturally through stories by just asking yourself who are the characters and how they would interact together, of course are probably number one. Favorite TV show of all time is modern family.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Definitely, definitely.
RV (06:23):
And, and, you know, if you, if you, if you step back and you look at modern family, it’s basically, there’s a bunch of characters who are all very strong. They all have salient features. And then each episode is they just, they just mix and match different characters together in a scene. And I don’t know for sure if this is how they do it, but we’ve watched it so much. I have to think this is what they do is they go, okay, let’s take Jay and Gloria and, you know, Phil and put them at a carnival, what would happen? And so they just, they take these characters and they, they, they never run out of ideas to write because they’re exploring the depth of not only each character, but how would that character interact with another character? And you could just, you know, put, pull these together.
RV (07:15):
And so it’s just, I think really, really brilliant. You can tell that you know, John is an amazing writer. Again, you probably heard this in the interview, but if you don’t know this, he, he was the co-author of the Go-Giver with Bob bird, which is one of the best-selling non-fiction books of all time. And probably in my top five favorite books. I mean, it’s just, it is an amazing book. And so this characters, it’s like, there’s there’s room for humor and entertainment and depth and emotion drama. Yeah. All, all the things. All right. So AIJ why don’t you go ahead and just tell everyone what our third takeaway is, even though you don’t know for sure what mine is there it’s
AJV (07:57):
Possible. There’s often interviews where it’s like, well, we’re probably going to have the same ones which is always fine too. But my third and final one is that I just know so many people who would have what they call writer’s block. And I would really like to say, there is no such thing as writer’s block, there’s only memory block. And this is what I mean by that. It’s like the only reason you’re not writing is because you’re not remembering all the things that you have to write about. Right? It’s like, you know, you have memory block, not writer’s block. Like somehow you have forgotten about all the events that have happened to you or to someone, you know, or to someone that, you know, know someone, you know, right. There are these stories and these events that happen all day long, every day, all around the world in your life and in the lives of those around you.
AJV (08:49):
And then when you sit down to write, you forget about all of them, right. And it’s not my first block, it’s a memory block. It’s like, somehow your memory, just those white. Right. And you don’t remember all the things that have happened to you. Hardships, successes, failures, happy moments, surprise moments. And it’s like, instead of trying to figure out what should I be writing about? It’s this think about all the events, all the stories that you’ve had in your life. And then what was the point or message behind that? What did you learn from that? What did someone else learn from that? But it’s like, I believe that truly every great piece of content that I’ve ever read, book, article, interview, whatever, there is a story behind it. And it’s like the whole message or the point of the story happened because it happened to someone like it was a real life event.
AJV (09:37):
And so it’s like, as you get going into writing, it’s like, just ask yourself, like, what does this look like in real life? So if you are a, you know, in my example an entrepreneur is like, what does entrepreneurship look like in real life? It’s messy. Right? It’s messy. And what does it look like for a working parent then it’s real messy. And what does it look like for a working parent of two toddlers during COVID? Well, it, then it’s just frigging chaotic, right? So it’s like, what does it look like in real life? And let that be the conduit for your content and what you write about and what you talk about. You don’t actually have to come up with much. You just have to remember all of the things that already are happening all around you every single day, and then use those as the template, the outline for your content.
RV (10:28):
Yeah, that’s good. I mean, that’s really good if you just you know, and we always say, if you’re your most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were, and that happens through what you’re doing, what you’re talking about is telling stories about your life and you never run out of, you never run out of stuff to say you get 24 hours of news stories every day, or maybe not 24 hours, but lots of hours. So that my third one actually was different. And th this was a very technical, technical writing tip, which I, I love because I love the technical tips. He said this, which I thought was super eloquent. He said, suspense is creating questions. And then unwrapping details on the way to an answer. Suspense is creating questions and then unwrapping details on the way to an answer.
RV (11:24):
And there’s, there’s so many parts of this that I love. So one is what is suspense? It’s creating questions. It’s going, what’s going to happen? Why did they do that? Where is this going? You know, what’s the next step. And, and that’s part of what creates engagement is that is suspense. That’s what draws the audience in is it’s, it’s creating these questions. And then this is the part I love unwrapping details. What a illustration and way to think about telling a story. It’s like a story is a gift that you slowly unwrapped for people. And you expose a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more, you know, on the way to the answer on the way to this wonderful destination, where you, where everything comes together. And there’s this, this, you know, this moment where there’s a lesson the, the questions are questions are answered. Problems are solved, lessons, lessons are learned. And I just thought that was super cool. And, and to go, oh, if you want to create more suspense, all you have to do is create more questions. And don’t leave and don’t leave a question, unanswered, answer the answer. You just answer them one at a time and, and make sure you systematically work your way through. So I, I thought that was just delightful.
AJV (12:47):
It’s good. That’s a very good technical dev. I like it. I like
RV (12:50):
It. I think in my you know, it’s funny. Cause I started with like when I was a teenager, my dream was like, I want to be a speaker. And I think as I’ve gotten older, it’s like, I more really loved writing and it’s like, I want to be a really great writer. And you know, this is, this is really cool. So getting a chance to learn from one of the best writers of our time, John David, man, what a tree go back, listen to the episode check out his new e-book how to write good or at least. Yeah. Which I just love was so great. And then share this episode with someone in your life who wants to learn to be a better writer or just a better storyteller in general. Leave us, leave us your comments on social. Come say hi over on Instagram to me or LinkedIn to AIJ. And keep coming back. We’re grateful. You’re here. We’ll keep that. We’ll keep the content coming. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 206: How to be a Better Writer with John David Mann

RV (00:07):
Hey, brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/pod call. We hope to talk to you soon.
RV (00:54):
I would consider my first major media appearance ever to have been in an outlet called networking times magazine. And I got, I want to say I was maybe 22 years old when I got a full, like three page spread story that was written about me. That was huge because it was huge for my confidence. We got some great reach out of the article, and then we included screenshots of that article in the book proposal that we ended up using to get our, our first book deal for take the stairs. Well that the writer of that article is the man that you are about to meet today. His name is John David Mann, and so we had been friends literally since the beginning of my career. And then he Koa, he he’s written about 30 books. They’ve been translated into 35 languages. They’ve sold millions of copies.
RV (01:50):
I still to this day, my, my favorite book and John has written so many since then, but the go giver is my favorite book. He coauthored that with my friend Bob Burg, and that book has just been one of the top five books of all time for me that I’ve ever read. John’s written several fables and just released his first fiction book, which is pretty fascinating. We’ll hear about that. And he also has a new ebook out that’s exclusively only as an ebook called how to write good or at least good, or, and so anyways, my old friend is really great to have you, I can’t wait to pick your brain on some of the writing secrets. Thanks for making time for us.
JDM (02:39):
It’s great. It’s a cliche to say, but it has been too long, but the time is just right. So yeah, good to be here. Good to see you.
RV (02:46):
And I feel like, you know, we, we kind of have touched base every couple years for now, like 20 years and it’s like a few, a few years ago by, and then it’s like, you got a new book or we’re doing something and you know, tell me about so I want to hear just about the fiction book quickly. I mean, I wanna, I wanna understand your writing process, or maybe you can merge these together. What I’m really interested in knowing you know, this podcast is all for personal brands. A lot of what we talk about is digital marketing and branding and positioning and messaging. And we actually don’t talk that much about writing, like at its true core, writing a story, creating content, and you’ve done this non-fiction, you’ve done fables now you’ve done fiction. And I, you know, my only goal today is to try to like steal all your secrets about your writing process for F to get, to get those out of you for free. But you, you just did your first fiction book. So I’m curious, how, why did you do that? How is that different from the other stuff that you have done and like, what are some of the lessons that have come out out of that experience? Yeah.
JDM (03:56):
You know, it’s in the course of all these books, you know, as you know, this, there’s been a lot of different kinds of books. I’ve written a handful of memoirs, which is interesting. It’s like basically telling somebody else, tell me your story and I will make it into a book. And so when you read a memoir, your you’re, you’re taking an existing story. That’s reality that really happened to this person. Right. But you’re still trying to find the story in it. So in a sense, you’re taking that person’s story and you’re rewriting it as you’re not making stuff up, but you’re choosing stuff. You’re framing stuff. It’s like making a biopic. If you’re a movie director. Right. And you’re going to write about, you know Freddie mercury are going to write about you know, Gandhi or whoever you’re gonna write about what events do you choose?
JDM (04:42):
How do you string them together? So you’re fashioning a story and you know, about writing in general. My belief is that no matter what you’re writing, whether you’re writing somebody else’s memoir or a straight non-fiction book, like some of the books I’ve done that are sort of business nonfiction, concept books, or a parable, a fable clearly, or a novel like this was, it just came out or Hey, if you’re writing a blog post or you’re writing a Facebook post or a LinkedIn article, or you’re writing a promotional piece, you’re telling a story, you’ve got a beginning, middle and end. You’re, you’re creating an arc, you’re creating some suspense, you’re creating some interests, you’re creating some intrigue and you’re answering some questions or at least you’re posing some questions. It’s all kind of the same thing. I mean, they’re really different, really different forms, but there’s this, there’s this basic sort of storytelling, DNA imprint.
JDM (05:41):
We’ve all got inside us, huddled around a campfire or huddled around, you know, in a cave however long ago hearing about the saber tooth tiger that one of us killed. We’ve all still kind of got this. Tell me what happened next gene in us. And that’s what expresses itself in story in any medium. So yeah, the novel was wild and completely different experience in one sense. You know, as I think it was telling you before we started that, that I feel like I’ve been climbing these lovely little Hills for 15 years. And all of a sudden I’m like with an oxygen mask on the top of Mount Everest, climbing this novel, say, how do I get up here? And how do I get down, especially how do I get down without breaking my neck? Cause 400 plus page novel. That sounds, that’s a thriller on top of it, which means you can’t let up the tension for a moment. You can’t let it dispense for a moment. You can’t let up the pace for him keeping someone’s attention. So they’re turning pages for 460 pages. It’s a whole different challenge and a whole different world than writing the golden giver which has to do the same thing. But in this little tiny form, it’s like the Go-Giver is like a miniature.
RV (07:00):
I know in a lot of your books are so short, like, like the fables there, you can sit down and read them in one sitting like 400 pages is it’s totally different.
JDM (07:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s totally different. By the way, out of all the writing I’ve done, I’ve come to a point where the two things I love to do most are the, are the fables and the novels. So it’s, that’s like, that’s, that’s my, that’s my career, Catherine. I love those parables. I love taking a life message or, or a life principle and spinning that into a story that feels real, that feels compelling, you know, about people that you care come to care about. And if a parable, you know, I say it in the book, how to write good. I say a parables are really easy to write poorly.
RV (07:50):
Yeah. I mean that, like, to me, it freaks me out because you know, I just think the power of a parable, like I think of AIJ. So my wife my business partner, this, our CEO of brand builders group, she, you know, she always makes fun of me for reading boring business books. She calls them boring business books. And, and she loves, she loves fables cause she gets hooked on the story and she, you know, she, she loves to read fiction. And so the, her, her favorite, you know, books, business books are fables and some of mine are too, you know, I think of like the five dysfunctions of a team from pat Lensioni. And then of course you guys did a whole bunch in the, in the Go-Giver series. But like, so can you so here’s my question. Here’s what I don’t think I’m very good at. And I think a lot of people aren’t good at both in writing and speaking is how do you create suspense? Like you just mentioned that for 400 pages, you can’t let off the gas for a second. How do you, like, what is suspense? How do you create it? And then like, how do you know how to write it?
JDM (09:07):
Yeah, I think that’s, that’s a great question. And I think that you know, contact kind of thinking, I’m kind of framing my, my thoughts in the parable space at the moment, because there’s the Go-Giver books. I had the opportunity to write the sequel to who moved my cheese, which was a experience on the other end of the spectrum, right? Cause steal fear. The novel is like 450 page thriller about a serial killer on an aircraft carrier at a wholly different thing who moved my cheese is written at the level of a child it’s Spencer Johnson wrote children’s books. And, and he actually wrote literally children’s books in addition to his adult books. And so to write in the style of Spencer Johnson and write a SQL to who moved my cheese, it’s called out of the maze, was like, I had to, you know, put your brain into that, into that container.
JDM (10:00):
But there’s still suspense in there. And the suspense of the Go-Giver because there’s, you know, in the Go-Giver for those of you who haven’t read it, there’s this character called the connector and you don’t know who he is. And there’s this character called the Friday guests and you don’t know who he is and Joe has got this problem and you can’t imagine how he’s going to solve it. And there, there are these various questions that you don’t really see how they’re going to resolve themselves, but they do the, the, the requirement for the ending of a great mystery or a great suspense novel. Even the book, I would say like the Go-Giver requirement is that when you reach the end, you go, wow, I never saw that coming. And yet the moment you see it, you go, of course, that had to happen. It has to be inevitable, but a complete surprise at the same time, if it’s a surprise and you go, like Yvette came out of left field, I have no idea how that happened.
JDM (10:58):
That’s not fair. You broke the rules of the game. It has to be believable and inevitable and yet I didn’t see it coming. So, you know, actually our lives are like that. I mean, my marriage is like that. I’m, I’m married to my best friend, this amazing woman. And I meeting her was a complete surprise. It’s not something I ever could have planned, you know, writing the Go-Giver with Bob Berg was a complete surprise. It wasn’t something I sought. I’m getting off topic there, but so how do you create suspense? It’s kind of the opposite of giving a lecture or, or lecturing in the worst sense. You’re lecturing in the sense of, of just talking at people. Obviously if you give a great public talk, you don’t do this. You tell stories in a great public talk, but when you’re just lecturing at people, when you’re just telling people something, when you’re just talking at, let’s say you’re mansplaining, I’ll use current terminology.
JDM (11:58):
Like that’s, that’s this awful form of communication where you’re not listening. You’re just talking. Suspense is created by questions. What creates suspenses you pose questions. And not only do you not know the answer, but you can’t even imagine what the answer is. Like, where is this going? Like, where did that come from? What, you know, the classic thriller is kind of a, who done it, you know who somebody’s got dead, it’s murder in there. So who, who killed the person, but you don’t need murder to have mystery. There’s mystery in the seven habits of highly effective people, because the moment you see the title, you go, wow, what are those? How well does Stephen Covey unwrap those, those seven habits? The stories he tells that reveal them. It’s not a super suspenseful book, but he unwraps beautifully. So suspense is about setting up a question and then unwrapping the answer piece by piece in a way that every little morsel is delicious and every little morsel leaves you wanting more. That’s I don’t know if that’s a good way of describing it, but that’s the best way I can think of. I
RV (13:16):
Know. Well, I know it’s, it’s, it’s just hard, you know, I think of storytelling and there’s like so many things, it’s this beautiful blend of both science and art, right? Like there’s structure, there’s a lot of structure to it. And I think you know, a lot of it is artistic even, even to hear you describe it, I mean, to go, okay, I know I need to create an ending that is inevitable, but unpredictable, I’m gonna, that’s how I captured what you were saying. Right. It’s it’s like, of course it had to end that way, but I didn’t see that coming. And then you go, okay, I have to create questions along the way. And so, you know, do you just create questions through characters or like what, what if it is a non-fiction type of writing? I mean, obviously if it’s a parable, which I, which maybe is what you’re saying, like, you you’ve really come around to enjoying payables and novels, because you’ve got, I presume that you’ve got these characters and these kinds of dynamics that can create questions without just kind of posing. Well, I was on a, I was on a mission to understand, you know, the answer to this problem. And so I spent five years researching it and here’s what I found is that, that kind of thing. Yeah.
JDM (14:28):
And if you look at I mean, if you look at great non-fiction writing and I’ll give you an example Malcolm Gladwell, you take a book by blink or, or a book, the tipping point, or, you know, he’s got so many of these that are there along the same lines where they take the hero of the story is not a person. The hero of a story is a concept. It’s like an idea, like the tipping point, it’s how little things make a big impact. That isn’t the exact word, but something like that. Right? So he takes an idea and he unwraps it, using a lot of stories. He does exactly what you do when you’re on stage or what any good speaker does when you’re on stage. You have an idea you want to convey to your audience and you convey it by, by stringing stories together, little vignettes from your life or other, other people’s lives.
JDM (15:19):
Because when you can, you can, you can frame a principle around real people or real characters. It comes to life for people. So Aesop could have said, you know, if you’re slow and steady, if you’re careful what you’re doing, you’re gonna, you’re going to get there sooner, but people will go. Yeah, actually, that’s great. So instead he creates this hair and this tortoise, and now you go, well, who’s going to win the race. I think the hair is going to win. It’s obvious. Right. But it must be not him, but it must be the tortoise because he’s the slow one. But how is that going to work? You know, it’s like, it’s interesting. Suddenly that’s an example of a story at the parables in the Bible, in the new Testament are great examples of teaching tools, teaching stories that are, that, that make principles come to life with characters.
JDM (16:01):
But so back to your question for me, the answer is, yes, you said, do you create these questions through characters? I do. I do. I set up, you know, for me, whether I’m writing a novel or a parable, there’s a basic idea of kind of the setup. Like when Bob and I started working on the Go-Giver, he already had the title. We kind of knew the point of the story. Not kind of, we knew the point of the story. The point of the story was if you put your focus on others, more than yourself, on what you can provide in value, as opposed to what you can get in a value in any situation, your life will be better. That was the point, oh, we could have done the Go-Giver in a sentence and then a sentence. Yeah, that’s it. The point of my novel steal fear is a disgrace Navy seal stocks, a serial killer on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific ocean.
JDM (17:12):
And obviously you figure the point is going to be, he gets caught. We think, we hope you can kind of tell the story in a sentence. But then you, you create these characters and then you, you just breathe enough life into them so that they feel real. And then you see what happens and you start asking the questions like, well, what happens when he goes here? What happens when he goes there? Joe is beginning of the Go-Giver has a problem. What’s his problem. He’s in a business he’s frustrated. What’s, you’re frustrated about. I don’t know. We didn’t know. So you start asking questions. The beauty of, of doing that in both a parable and a novel is that I, the writer don’t necessarily know the answers. It’s like, I work to figure out what the answers are. I work to follow the story and see where’s this going? And so when, when the reader, when you, the reader start to follow the breadcrumbs from page to page, I was doing the same thing. You were a few months, I didn’t know either when
RV (18:17):
You have the whole arc mapped out, like you kind of know the ultimate destination, like you’re saying like the premise that he will have the book, right? Like you kind of know, okay, this is the very end. And then you kind of go, okay, let’s, here’s a couple of characters. And then, and then you just kind of like day by day, you go, what if this happened? What if that happened? Like how, how would these people interact? That’s right,
JDM (18:38):
Exactly what feels right. What seems, and I’ll give you a great example. There’s, you know, the Go-Giver has several books in the parable series and by the way, there’s a fourth one coming. We’ve got the, give her a leader that Go-Giver influencer, which I want to talk about for a sec. Cause it is an example. And then in the spring, we’re going to have the Go-Giver marriage, which my wife and my wife and I co-wrote this one. So we’re excited about that. But in the Go-Giver influencer, the third book, the basic premise of the book is it’s about seeing other people’s points of view. It’s like we could have called it. The Go-Giver negotiator. It’s about people who see things differently, turning an argument into a resolution, turning an opposition into an Alliance. That’s the basic thesis of the book. And so we start out with two characters who are in a tough negotiation and they’re basically opponents.
JDM (19:30):
And we knew that by the end of the book, there was going to be some really cool resolution that neither of them saw coming, but which would totally work. And the thing of it was neither of, neither of us saw it coming either. Like we didn’t know what that resolution was going to be. So it’s like we set up the situation, is it, I wonder how this is going to resolve. We knew what was going to happen at the end was going to resolve how, you know, we were discovering it in the process. So I think there’s, you mentioned earlier, there’s a balancing act. You have sort of the science and the art. There’s, there’s a structure side to writing and there’s kind of a flow side to writing and you’ll hear writers debate about whether you should use an outline or not. They call them plotters versus pantsers, plotters figure out a plot first.
JDM (20:21):
This is what James Patterson does figure out a plot. And then you kind of write the story. Pantsers like writing by the seat of your pants. Pantsers just start at page one and go, Stephen King says he’s a pantser. And I think this debate is a little specious because I really think that if you look got inside their brains, everyone’s doing a little bit of both or a mix of both. I know for me, I always have an outline, but it isn’t where it starts. This is by the way, true for a novel, a parable, it’s true for a blog post. It’s true for an article I’m going to write, I’ll have an outline, but I don’t, it’s not where I start. I start with just like an idea, a concept, a situation, a character, a piece of dialogue, whatever, from something that just as a spark and it’s always going back and forth between taking just random ideas and spontaneous writing stuff and kind of molding it into a structure and then taking the structure and saying, yeah, but then what happens over here? And then messing up again? So I go back and forth between structure and flow. I even have two different places in my, in my room where I, where I do it. I’m sitting at my structure place in my desk and over there in the corner, I can’t get over there in the corner. I have my overstuffed chair, which is where I sit with a pad of paper and a pen and just make stuff up. And I have no idea what’s coming.
RV (21:55):
So how do you get, how do you, well, maybe talk, talk to us about characters, right? Like how do you develop a character? Cause I, you know, like I’ve started watching I’ve started paying attention to this a lot in recent years because one of the things I realized is like, gosh, I have to become a better storyteller. Like to what you’re saying. I’ve realized if I want to get my points across more effectively, I have to become a better storyteller, which actually for me has been frustrating. Like I love the boring, just give me the information. Like I, and it’s hard because as a consumer, I actually do like that, but it’s, I think it’s very rare. Like people, they have to be engaged and entertained and you know, if you just deliver the punchline, it’s not punchy. If there isn’t that suspense or that conflict along the way, it doesn’t sink in. And then so I’m like, well, crap. I have to like, learn how to do this thing. I’m not naturally good at it. And I don’t really love, or didn’t really, I didn’t really love storytelling. And so, you know, like I think of, I think of one of our favorite shows as modern family. I mean, it is, it is our favorite show. We’ve watched it. Have you ever, have you ever seen the show
JDM (23:01):
Completely? Totally. Yes.
RV (23:03):
So we have seen every single episode in every season, every one of them we have seen at least at least six or seven times every single episode. And you know what I realized finally, after years now of watching the show is going, oh, there is a formula to this, which is basically each episode. They start with these characters who have very salient features. So each character has very distinct features. And then every episode they basically say, okay, what if we put these three characters together in these two characters together and these ones, and then go, what would happen if these extreme personalities got paired up in these different arrangements? And then I, and I kind of feel like, oh, that I think that maybe is how they’re, how they’re writing like a chemistry set. Yeah. Like I’m mixing these things together, but you know, so how do you develop characters? Where do you come up with these, you know, ideas? And if you’re just, you know, if you’re doing it, if you’re a pantser and you’re just kinda like letting it flow, how do you do it to where it doesn’t suck and isn’t boring. Yeah.
JDM (24:09):
So for me, by the way, I’m much more structure oriented than, than, than, you know, flow oriented. It’s kind of a very methodical nature. I come at it like a composer and I S you know, I was a composer before I was a writer and classical music was my training, my upbringing. And so I think like, like, you know, a symphonic composer which is a very structural thing. So a couple things about, about characters. First thing I want to say is the fact that you said you’re naturally suck at this is awesome. Because if, if you, if you come to something from a place of nothing naturally inclined to do it, you can become so great. Like, I’ll give you an example. I, I started doing these military books with Brandon Webb, my Navy seal friend. I know nothing about the military. It’s like writing a book in German when I don’t speak German.
JDM (24:57):
And I have to learn the language just to write the book. But, you know, there’s, there’s no one who loves the English language, like somebody who was brought up somewhere else who learns it as their second language. That was my dad’s case. He came from Germany and he like, no, he loved English, like no native American, whatever love. So that’s the first thing I don’t come up with these characters automatically. I’m not, I don’t consider myself a gifted at this naturally, like Stephen King just kind of shakes his arms and colorful characters, spill out. I’m not like that. So I’ll start out with a character, with a character. And by the way, one of my writing teachers says that before you start a novel, you spend weeks and weeks and weeks writing character profiles, where like you ask all these questions, you answer them all, and you, and you come to know this character, like better than, you know, your brother.
JDM (25:50):
Then you start the novel. I tried and I couldn’t really do it. And interesting when I S when I start a character, when I create a character, he’s kind of a, like a stereotype or a caricature at first. So like, you know, Joe and Pindar Joe is this, you know, struggling young business guy. And Pindar is this wise old mentor or in my novel, there’s this captain, the ship captain who a jerk he’s, he’s, he’s a, he’s an. And it was, it would have been so easy to make him like a cartoon villain.
JDM (26:28):
So then what I do is I do something very much like what you do in real life. I used to run a sales organization, and I had people who were terrified and making cold calls and terrified and making sales calls. And they would say, when I get, and they would say, when I get in the phone, it’s like, you know, I freeze up because I feel like, I don’t know. I I’ve got all this stuff, I want to say, but it feels can, that feels hollow. And so my thing was, when you get on the phone, ask yourself the question, who is this person I’m talking to? Yeah, you got your product or your service. You got your stuff, you got your pad, or you’ve got your, your, you know, all of that. That’s already in your head. So just let that go for a moment, ask the question, who is this person I’m talking to?
JDM (27:16):
Not like, what do they need so I can sell them. But just who are they? I’m just curious, be curious about the person and not, you can’t grill them like third degree. Where did you come from? Where’d you grow up? How many siblings do you have? But just be curious. That’s what it’s like with a character. Curiously, these characters, this guy is, is a jerk of a leader. He’s an aircraft carrier captain that is terrible leader. He doesn’t have any sympathy of risk people. He doesn’t talk to his people. No one really looks up to them. They just do, because they have to go that’s the position, but they don’t naturally because they think all things is a jerk. Okay. What is he most worried about? What concerns him most, when a problem comes up, how does he react? It’s like, I just get curious about asking questions and you see just like popping up little detail tales about somebody, the way they, the way they respond, the way they say certain, like catchphrases will come out or certain ways of talking will come out.
JDM (28:24):
And they start to come to life. It’s I still find it challenging for me. It’s not something I, I I’m, I come to naturally, so I have to work at it, which is good, because that means I have to make it happen. You know, that’s true with, with everything, right? Whether it’s a parable or it’s a novel or, or anything else, or for that matter, if I’m writing a like a principal, like I’m writing a blog post about, you know, leadership. Well, I say to them said, give me an example of that. I try to think of an event that’s happened in my life that somehow reflects that. And I think of the people in that event, I always ask myself questions. What does that look like when it actually happens? So that’s, you know, that’s, that’s kinda where it’s at in the novel.
JDM (29:13):
There are a lot of things that happen. There’s a lot of situations or characters. They were vaguely echoes of real characters and real just because that’s, you know, that’s where I went there. Well, I dipped into to start to make it the life. You’ll hear film actors, talk about how, in order to play this role, they had to excess this memory of their own, his own experience. Like in order to play this greeting father, they had to access when their dog died and how sad they were. And I used to think that’s so pretentious. That’s like actors speaking, Hollywood actors. That’s how they talk. But I, as a writer, I started realizing that’s really true. You know, when you want to write somebody, who’s grieving, you go find a place in your life where you’ve grieved and you remember that, and it kind of opens that door for you. And so I think the, the real skill to answer your question about where characters come from, it’s empathy, it’s all empathy. You tap your empathy. And that’s where I think stories and characters kind of that’s the wellspring that they come out of.
RV (30:23):
Wow. That is so good. That is so, so powerful. I think suspense, plot lines, being curious, characters, you know, coming from empathy really, really great stuff, John, I I just admire so much what you do and, and you’re truly an artist in the way. You’ve been able to apply it across so many different things. Where do you want people to go? Okay, you mentioned this book how to write good or at least good, or which is a, is an ebook that you have, or, you know, where, where do you want people, if they want to connect with you or people who are aspiring writers or just wanting to be better at the craft of writing how can they learn more about you?
JDM (31:06):
Yeah, it’s funny because the book itself grew out of podcasts and interviews, just like this conversations like this, where people would ask questions about writing and I’d come up with an answer and say, oh, I should write that down. I only meant to do a little like 12, 14, 18 page, little sort of ebook article. And it turned into a full fledged book. So I hear it is masquerading as a physical book. I’m doing it right now, as you said, just as an, as an ebook, it’s a free download on my website. I imagine someday I’ll really publish it. And it’ll be, it become a a real boy like Pinocchio, but right now there’s a new book that you can buy. You can get free on my site, which is just my name, John David mann.com. And you go to Johnny batman.com and you’ll see up there, you know, ebook free ebook, whatever that’s, that’s, that’s what this is. I love
RV (31:54):
That. I love that so much. Well, you know, thank you for the work that you put into this because your, your characters are delightful. And they’re everything that you just described there they’re dynamic. They are real, they are multi-dimensional, they, they are people that we have all met in real life, which makes sense, because there, there are people that you have met they’re based on those, and, you know, specifically the way that you weave a tale into you, you can take one simple principle. That is a sentence like it literally could be a tweet. And from that you extrapolate this, this beautiful, wonderful, entertaining, uplifting, curious page, turning, sorry, that’s just such a bit more, it’s just such a more enriching way to get to that destination and a more effective one too, you know? And so we really appreciate your work and we appreciate you very much sharing several of your secrets here with us for free.
JDM (32:56):
I certainly appreciate it too. I love being here. And I have to say, you know, in the balance between telling a story versus teaching a principle, either paranormal, you’re always doing both. It’s a tricky balance because in my mind, the story, the story has to always lead story has to be king because the principal only works with the story as king. I got to the end of steel, fear, the novel, and turned around, looked back and realized that it was teaching a leadership principle. It’s like, it’s a parable, it’s a leadership, parable disguised as a crime novel. My parable, my parable, I have it’s, you know, w we’ll never die, I guess. It’s like they don’t go away.
RV (33:32):
That is awesome. That’s awesome. Well, we wish you the best, my friend. Thanks for being here. And thanks for your support after all these years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll do it again. A couple of years away.

Ep 199: Creating Distinction in Your Personal Brand with Scott Mckain | Recap Episode

Welcome back to the influential personal brand podcast, special recap edition. We are breaking down the interview with my longtime friend, Scott McCain. AJis not with me here today, so I’m rolling. Settle on this. And I, I love the conversation with Scott because over my career I’ve probably had, I don’t know, maybe maybe 15 or 20 conversations with Scott and like dedicated conversations and every single time I do, I feel like it moves me forward. Like it moves my understanding forward. I feel like there’s, there’s these really great insights that I have drawn. And so it’s fun to get a chance to share some of those with you coming off of this most recent interview, which was just, it’s just solid. I mean, he’s just got such solid expertise, such solid insights, such a great example and model of both someone who’s tremendous on stage, you know, the world world the hall of fame speaker designation and then just such a long track record and a career of, you know, diving in to this one topic area of distinction and helping companies create more distinction.

So I think there’s a lot to learn from watching just excuse me, the way that Scott has built his career and, and modeling what he’s done in his own career to really carve out that expertise. But anyways, let me give you my, my three big takeaways in terms of what I heard, what I’m applying in my own life in my own career as part of our team at brand builders group. So number one, he said this, which is funny, cause I don’t, he’s probably said this before, but it’s one of those things where you go, ah, it doesn’t quite, you know, every time you hear it, you, you hear it differently. And this was just such a simple line. He said, no one is loyal to a generic, no one is loyal to a generic, right? Like the, the concept of being generic is, is indistinguishable, like indistinct un-unique, which means you are replaceable.

It means you’re, you’re transferable, you’re interchangeable. There, there is no specific value or no specific thing that somebody can get from your brand that they can’t get from somewhere else. And I think this is one of the things that we talk about a lot at brand builders group. And it’s, it’s a big part of what separates our philosophy and strategy about, about branding and even like content. So our, our, we have 12 courses in our core curriculum, 12 events and in our phase one course, two it’s called captivating content. And we talk about extrapolating your uniqueness into a body of work. It’s extrapolating your ideas. And one of the things that people get so hung up on is is they, they think, oh, well, Bernay brown already said that. Or Tony Robbins already said that, or Stephen Covey says it this way or whatever, like pick your, pick your person, Seth Godin says it like this, or Simon Sinek or, you know, like it, they just, they rattle off or they, they, they, they think of, they think that what they say doesn’t matter because someone already said something like that, or somebody said something about it.

Who was who, who is like, what more well-known than they are. But the whole way you become unique is sharing your viewpoint. It’s your opinion. It’s your story? It’s your path? What have you done? And, and I think one of the great mistakes, it’s, it’s not bad to quote other people here and there, but I don’t need you to tell me what so-and-so thought I can go read their book. I can go listen to them. Speak. What makes you irreplaceable is you sharing with me, with us, with the world, what you think and not even what you think, tell us what you’ve done. It’s why we say all the time that you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were because you have walked down a path that gives you all the credibility. You need to speak to that person. And you know, everything you need to know to get past that problem or that obstacle that they are facing.

And because only you can give us your story about how you did it. Only you can share with us your insights about what someone else needs to know, you know, to help them on that same journey. No one else is you. You know, AJ had these t-shirts printed for our company that says your uniqueness is your super power. And, you know, she believes so deeply in, in that. And, and she just draws that out of our think our team and our clients in such a beautiful way, because she’s always talking about you. Tell me about you. Tell me your stories. who are you? What do you believe? What do you know what you have been through? That is unique? I can’t get it anywhere else. I can’t get it in someone else’s video course. I can’t get it in a book. I can’t get it on any other YouTube channel.

I can only get that from you. And that makes you irreplaceable. It makes you one of a kind. It, it, and, and yet, most people won’t do the deep work of figuring out what do they think? What do they believe? And then do the work of polishing it because they write that they write it off. They write themselves off as insignificant. They write their own experience, their own education, their own insights. They write them off as trivial or insignificant, and somehow over estimate, an overly weights or overly attribute the significance and the weight of other people’s opinions. But we can get those from them. We can’t get you. We can’t get yours from anyone except you. So no one is loyal to a generic either. That was, I was so good. Relatedly, I definitely had never heard Scott share this quote, which apparently is from the CEO of Fairmont.

And I loved this. And he said, every moment that I was playing defense against the competition, wasted a moment where I could be innovating to make them irrelevant every moment where I was playing defense against the competition, wasted a moment where I could have been innovating to make them irrelevant. That’s so good. And again, it’s the same thing of like setting your strategy or doing things in your company based upon what other people are doing and going, I want to emulate, and I want to form what I do based on what others are doing either, because I want to be like them, or I want to be different from them, but it’s using the external orienting your strategy based around in an external dynamic, an external force, an external figure, an external company versus just going, what do I want to do? What do I think would be awesome?

What do I think would be cool? What do I think has never been done before? What am I interested in learning? What am I interested in saying, what do I think people need? What do I think is missing from the world that I somehow feel uniquely called or equipped to serve? That’s innovating, right? Innovating. Isn’t going, let me look at what everybody else is doing. And somehow try to like, do something different or better than them. At least not. In my opinion, innovating is going deep inside and saying, how could I do this better? What, what would make this better? What do I think the world needs more of? How could we deliver this in a way that would make it better for our customers, for our team, not what does so-and-so do? What does my competition to, whatever everyone else around me doing, what is the state and the trend of my industry or the world it’s, it’s like, it’s going internally again and, and innovating.

And when you do that, you make them, you make other competition irrelevant, not from the standpoint of like, we’re so much better than you than know that nobody needs you. Although maybe that maybe the CEO did mean it that way. But I think of it as like, they’re irrelevant because they can’t get the same experience from other people that they can get from you because you’re not looking at what they’re doing and trying to emulate it or do the same thing they’re doing. You’re doing it your way. And the only place that someone can come get it your way and authentically your way from the original source is from you. Because you’re the only person who does that. You’re the only person who offers that. So why not lean into that? Why not own that? Why not rest in that? Why not settle in that?

Why not establish and plant your foundation in that it makes you uncopiable. It’s doing things the way that you would do them. And, and it’s just listening to your own instinct, your own intuition, your own beliefs of going, this is how I would do this. This is how I would say this. You know, we’re I had been working on one of our courses, a new courses called pressure-free persuasion. And it’s about, you know, it’s about sales effectively. I mean, there are so many books written on sales. Like it’s unbelievable. I mean, there’s so many people who talk about sales. Why would I go, I’m going to create a book on sales. Is it, is it because I think I’m going to say things about sales that have never been said before, not necessarily, but I do think that I have things to say about sales and selling and the, and the way that selling should be done, that is markedly different from how other people would describe it.

And I know AJ has philosophies that have what she does, which is very different. She does things that you would read in the bestselling, the, what you would read in the best selling sales books of all time. And AGA would say, that’s stupid advice. That’s terrible. I would never do that. I would never say that to my customer and is going, you can’t get that from anywhere, except her from here from our team, like that is our uniqueness. It’s, it’s what we’re saying. What the way we would say it is different. Now are the principles the same? In some cases they are, in some cases they’re radically different, but it doesn’t matter. It’s it’s doing it the way you would do it saying it the way you would say it, being it the way you want to be it. And when you do that, you’re uncomparable, you’re unique.

You’re distinguished, you’re different. You have natural differentiation, not, not artificial manufactured differentiation, because it’s coming from you inside the source. And every moment that you are spending time, you know, comparing it to the way someone else does it, or using that as the, as the primary or the sole basis for how you do it is a moment you’re not, you’re not digging in and listening and praying about and thinking about and meditating on and, and just hearing like what the spirit says to you about how you could do it. And you move in that way because they can’t get it anywhere else. They can’t get it anywhere else. But there’s a lot of people who can teach, you know, StrengthFinders. There’s a lot of people who can teach the seven habits of highly effective people. They’re whatever they’re certified, but when you’re building your personal brand and those things aren’t bad, that’s great.

There’s value. There’s a lot of value to those things. They’re well-established, but the thing they can’t get anywhere else is what do you believe about productivity? What do you believe about sales? What do you believe about marriage or dating or relationships or leadership or entrepreneurship or fitness or health or diet, or like, whatever your thing is that makes you uncomfortable, but it’s doing the work then of listening to that and then owning it and then, and then doing the work of polishing it and not just sharing random half-baked thoughts, but actually developing it and refining it and working it, all these things that we take you through and captivating content to help you go, okay. So let’s, let’s sharpen your ideas. Let’s make clear what your ideas are. Let’s, let’s tighten them, let’s shape them. Let’s poke holes in them, let’s test them and then let’s come out with something that is beautiful that no one else could ever say, because it’s completely tied to you.

Which leads me to my, my third takeaway from Scott and this whole conversation was where he said, it’s the decision is the toughest part, the decision about what you’re going to own and who you’re going to be is the toughest part. And I agree with that. I think one of the things that we wrote in the take the stairs book, which made me think about this, I haven’t thought about this in years, even though it’s in that book is that we spend too much of our time trying to make the right decision.

And instead we should spend more of our time making a decision and then making it right. And what that means is too often, we sit around kind of like trying to do this universal calculus of like, what’s the right move for me to make. And I don’t want to make the wrong move. And we, we think that it’s kind of like we have to choose the right path. And we try to assess based on whatever, some scoring criteria or set of factors and to go like, oh, what’s, what’s the, what’s the right path for me. And I want to make sure I take the right path versus kind of instead, just like taking a general look and going, okay, well, this is generally the way I’m going to go. You know, and I’m going to take out my, my machete and I’m going to chop down the wood and the twigs and the branches.

And I’m going to just kind of make the path like this is the path I choose. I’m gonna make this my path. I’m going to make it right. And, and this is such a, such a simple, but, but profound decision point in your career. Because again, if you’re choosing, if you’re waiting for the perfect path, you’re waiting for it’s, it’s based upon the idea that you could choose the wrong path, right. And you know, there are certainly bad decisions you can make, especially in your personal life, right? There are poor decisions you can make that will have consequences, but when it comes to like setting your strategy, I think less of it is about going, oh, what’s the perfect path. And it’s more of going like, okay, let’s make a general consideration of what I’m good at what I like doing the people around me, the skills I have, the skills I don’t, the market, et cetera.

And then picking a path and dominating it and saying, this is what I’m going to do. And I’m going to make it work like that, that the decision to make it work is more important than the decision about what should I make work, the decision to make it work is more important than a decision about what should I make work. That’s where we got to get to is, is just going like, okay, this is the path I’m going to make it work. I think about brand builders group, right? And like, we could do all these things we could do. We could do masterminds and we could do live events and we could do video courses and we could do monthly membership sites. And we could do keynote speaking. We could do consulting. Like we could do all of these things. But from when we started the company, we said, we’re going to do one-on-one coaching for personal brands.

We feel like that’s something that not a lot of people do. If they do it, they don’t do it at scale. If they do it, they don’t have a lot of curriculum or structure behind it. And there’s not a bunch of people out there in the market doing it, you know, so was this, and we know how to do one-on-one coaching, not in the personal brand space. We’d never done that before, but, but we didn’t know something. We had built a coaching company before. Right. And that’s where AJ and I, and a lot of our team came from is we had some knowledge and said, this is what we’re going to do. And, and we said, our goal is a thousand messengers. We’re going to find 1000 personal brands that we’re going to work with on a one-on-one basis every single month. And we’re going to go get a thousand messengers.

And we just had our three-year birthday. And interestingly enough, we just crossed 300 active members. I just got the notification this morning, we’re at 301 active members. We’re making progress. Like we’re on the path. Isn’t because we chose the right path. I mean, there’s something to be said for the fact that we chose something that we thought we could do that we thought we could be good at that maybe there wasn’t a bunch of other people do it, but there’s lots of coaching companies out there. There’s lots of people who do one-on-one coaching in, in, in the personal brand space. It’s more because we made a decision and made the D and then, and then said, we’re going to make it right. And this, this happens with choosing your business model. I think this happens with choosing like what’s the right social media platform to be on.

And this certainly has, has this certainly applies to what topic do you choose to talk on? There’s not a perfect topic. There’s not something written in the universe that if you, if you select the right one, then you’ll hit the jackpot and your personal brand is going to succeed. It’s more about just choosing one and going all in on that one problem, all in on that one message all in on that one uniqueness. And you, because, because when you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. And being clear is greater than being clever. And, and it’s like making a decision and making it right is more important than making the right decision. So it’s the decision, that’s the toughest part. And I think what makes it hard as we’re trying to assess, what’s the perfect decision instead of just going, all right, I’ve taken a general account for some factors.

This is the decision and boom, I’m going at it. I’m running at it. I’m chasing it down. I’m knocking it down. I’m getting the machete out. If I have to. And I’m cutting down trees and weeds, but I’m going, I’m not just looking for the easy path. I’m not looking for the perfect path and not looking for the path that other people do or don’t do. I’m looking for my path and I’m going to decide it. And I’m going to make a way, and I’m going to figure it out. And maybe that’s what you need to do today. Maybe that’s where you are at. But this whole conversation from one of the world’s leading thinkers on distinction, Scott McCain, it all pointed. At least me back. It all pointed me back to the idea that you gotta dig deep inside. You gotta, you got to go internal and figure out what you want to be and who you want to be. And if you need help with that, you should call us because we’re really, really good at it. So I hope you enjoy this episode. I hope you do request a call with our team if you haven’t yet. And at some point we get to meet you, but yeah, more than anything, I hope that whatever your path is today that you make a decision and then you make it right, that you, you choose a path and then you make it the winning path. And we’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 198: Creating Distinction in Your Personal Brand with Scott Mckain

RV (00:02):
You can’t have a podcast and business about personal branding and finding your uniqueness and positioning without at some point interviewing Scott McCain. This man is a legend in our space. He is owns I think the word distinction this is something he spent his career studying and talking about. He’s a personal friend of mine. I very much consider him a mentor. I’ve known him for years. He is is the globally recognized authority on distinction and, and really how to stand out in a hyper competitive market, how to separate yourself from the crowd. So much of what we talk about with she hands wall and finding your uniqueness. And Scott has worked with apple and SAP and BMW and Merrill Lynch, and Cisco. These are the kinds of companies that are hiring him to help them create more distinction. He’s in two hall of fames, he’s in the professional speaking hall of fame, which I share with him. And then he is in the sales and marketing hall of fame as well. He appears in major media outlets all across the country USA today, New York times. And his most recent book is called iconic. How organizations and leaders attain, sustain, and regain the ultimate level of distinction, which Forbes called a top 10 business book. Scott McCain, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the show.
SM (01:30):
I’ve got to make sure to play that introduction for my wife. Just so maybe I’m going to borrow the best Rory. I tell you, man, I’m just sitting here with goosebumps. It is so great to be your friend. It is so great to be your guest. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
RV (01:45):
You’re so welcome, buddy. You’re you are genius. I quote you all the time in so many places with, with, with full attribution. I learned this from,
SM (01:54):
I do the same with you. My friends,
RV (01:57):
There’s so many things, but here’s a personal thing that I don’t know if you even know this, but those people who’ve been following me for years know that when we launched the take the stairs book, we did a bus tour. And that was a huge part about how we hit the New York times. And that happened because of a conversation that you and I had at lunch at an NSA meeting, we peeled off her lunch. And you told me about how you did your bus tour, and then we freaking did it and it worked. And you know, that’s just one of many things that we can point to in our life to say, because of Scott McCain.
SM (02:30):
Oh, you are okay. Well, it’s a blast. I think the other thing is, I don’t know how musicians do it, their entire lives. I was thrilled to do it for the tour, right. I mean, the tour was great, but how they do that for, you know, I’m buddies with the Oak Ridge boys and, and, you know, the, the newest guy in the group has been in the group for 46 years. So the new guy, and he’s been there 46 years and they are on a bus every week, or they’ll not with COVID, but they’re back out and I’m like, how do you guys do this? It’s just, it’s incredible. But again, it is the commitment to the craft, which is different in different businesses and industries. But so I’m just so thrilled for your success. And I I just sit back and see all of the things that you are, not only that you’ve done, but it, you were doing that’s, that’s what really matters. I mean, you, you you’ve attained such significant success and you continue to inspire and inform and lead you rock. Thanks.
RV (03:31):
We are you know, we’re fascinated by your topic and another person that we quote one of your best friends, Larry Winget, we, we say all the time find your uniqueness and exploited in the service of others. And we talk about Peter Xi Han and breaking through what we have named as she Hans wall, which is really breaking through from becoming unknown to, to becoming known, which is really a result of uniqueness, distinction originality being the expert on one thing. And so I guess my first question is just what’s what are the problems of being indistinct? Like what are the problems of similarity and you know, cause there’s some good things about being similar people understand you. I mean, if I were a financial advisor, a real estate agent people get it. I mean, so there’s some good things, but what are the, what are the problems? If you don’t have distinction, what do you have?
SM (04:29):
You know, Roy, when you stood that what popped into my head is because I’m also friends with your beautiful bride and you guys know my wife, Tammy, I will bet dollars to donuts when you proposed, just as, when I proposed to Tammy, I did not get down on one knee and say, honey, will you marry me? You’re exactly like every other woman I’ve ever dated, not a strong strategy in the history of business, regardless of what field you’re in, no customer, no client has ever left an encounter and said, I love doing business with them. They’re exactly like everybody else. We’re attracted, not for our similarities. We’re attracted for our uniqueness. And if customers cannot see a difference between you see, I think many times we’re misled by it by our training, by our thinking. And we think the customers choose us and that’s not a complete way of looking at it. Customers choose us instead of all of the other alternatives out there in the marketplace. And so if they don’t see a distinguishing factor between you and your competitor, then it’s going to come down to price or some other area that’s outside of our control, which is the last thing that we want is we try to take the long view in business about, you know, how do we get repeat business? How do we inspire referral business? You know, none of that comes from being exactly like everybody.
RV (05:59):
Yeah. I mean, I, I think gosh, that’s a really interesting way of thinking about it in the parallel of, of marriage, you know, is of, of your uniqueness. So I feel like a big part of your career, you built upon these four cornerstones of distinction. I’ve interviewed you on them before as relates to business, but we’ve never had this conversation in the context of personal branding, which obviously you understand that you are one, but can you just rattle off for people who just never met you before rattle off the four cornerstones of distinction? And then, you know, I’d love to kind of talk through how those apply to personal brands, because I know most of the work that you do is kind of in the corporate world, people hiring you to speak and consult and do that kind of thing. But I mean, do they, and then I guess, do they apply? I feel pretty confident they do, but you know, so just rip through those.
SM (06:52):
Well, the first one I think in many ways is tough, was stolen and that’s clarity. It’s not only being precise about what we are, it’s being as exact about what we are not. And that’s, what’s really hard, I think, particularly in creating a personal brand because when it comes to a company you know, they can say, oh, well, we don’t make those products because we make the product. But a personal brand, I think is, is a little bit more difficult to attain that we can come back to that. Then the second one is creativity. And, and I learned a lot from research I did in, in your home area, there in Nashville from interviewing songwriters. Because when I, when I started researching this, I thought that I thought the creativity would come first. You know, Hey, think outside the box, all of those things we think about innovation, but I interviewed 15 songwriters and to a person, everyone said, you got to get clear before you can get creative.
SM (07:44):
And the reason we say think outside the box is because we haven’t defined the box to begin with. Right? So creativity is the second aspect. What’s our unique twist on that. Third is communication. And what that really means is narrative. It’s understanding the principles of story and how we can communicate through narrative in a way that emotionally connects us. And, and you’ve done some pioneering work on generational differences as well. Rory and, and, and one of the things that really strikes me is that a great story appeals to every generation. So as, as we try to communicate our brand story, so that it’s appealing in the marketplace, not just a one segment, but to all segments, having a great story as a part of that. And then the fourth and final one is a customer or client experience focus. What does it feel like to experience our brand? W we, we, we think a lot about customer service to the customer experience, but a focus on it means that everything we do is how has this brand, that we’re trying to create, going to impact those that we seek influence. So it’s clarity, creativity, communication, customer experience. It’s fun.
RV (08:58):
So I love that. And clarity to me is the most important, like I agree with all of that. It’s, it’s, it’s it’s basically, you know, we have, we have in our curriculum, we have four phases and each phase has three courses. So we have 12 courses in our curriculum. The entire first one is just dedicated to trying to help people get clear on this. And you mentioned, you mentioned that it’s harder for personal brands, so why do you think it’s harder and how do we get clear on what our personal brand is about? Because I think the struggle is that humans are multi-dimensional right. We have many different passions. I mean, you’re passionate about music. You’re, you’ve got all of these different things you, you know about. You’ve been in business long enough. You’ve had your own business long enough to know a lot about a lot of different things. And yet you’ve been very consistent your entire career of like, you know, I, I am the guy, I am the guy on distinction. So how do we get clear?
SM (10:02):
Well, and you nailed it. I mean, it’s, it’s harder because we are multi-dimensional. And the other part is it seems to be safer to have more offerings, right? I mean, if, if, if I do all of these things, then there’s a range of things that people can choose from. And, and that will open up more opportunity for, for me and my business is what we assume, but instead it’s, it’s exactly the, it’s exactly the opposite. You know, I, I use the old story sometimes about how we shoot down planes in, in times of battle in world war two, what they would do is fill the skies with ammunition. It was called flack, and they would just shoot an abundance of ammunition into the air. So what technically actually happened is we didn’t shoot down their plane. The enemy’s plane ran into ammunition because they just threw so much up there, but these planes would run into the ammunition.
SM (10:59):
Well, now, as we know, it’s, it’s incredibly precisely targeted, and I think that’s a good analogy for what we need to think about in terms of business. But I’ll tell you that there comes to be a point when, when I first started my speaking career, I kind of did the motivational humor, customer service, kind of generic thing. And I went through a personal situation that caused me to reevaluate my business. And honestly, I was trying to look at how do I stand out from everybody else in the crowd? And I couldn’t find anything you know, there, there were a couple of books out trout wrote one called differentiator die. There were, there were a few things out there, but nothing really how to stand out. I, by the way, let me throw in real quick, the reason I use the term distinction instead of differentiation, is that merely being different doesn’t mean that’s going to have traction in the marketplace.
SM (11:53):
You know, if I slap every customer in the face, I’m different, but it doesn’t mean they’re, you know, they’re going to relate to what I’m talking about. So I’m talking about distinction, having a meaningful difference. That that really means something to the people that you’re hoping to connect with. So, you know, I went through that personal tragedy and I’m looking through and how do I stand out? I started researching it and really want to, I you’re taking me back to really one of the toughest points in my life because a speakers bureau that I did a lot of business with bookmobile lot called and said, for goodness sakes, we don’t get any calls asking for distinction, speeches, will you please go back and talk about customer service? And at that point I had to make a decision. And and, and it was the best decision, one of the best decisions of my life, but it was really hard to make it that time because it’s almost like they were dangling this checkout here. If you just, if you just get away from what you’ve said, your clarity is, if you just don’t do what you’re talking about, here’s, here’s a check and I turned it down. And I think that is what builds a brand. Had I accepted that, see, one of the things I find is that when people say, oh yeah, I’m that too. That’s when they lose the clarity, that really creates your brand in the marketplace.
RV (13:16):
Yeah. I mean, you know, you said this earlier about it’s being clear on who you are and also clear on who you’re not. And yeah, AIJ and I had spent so much time doing sales training for corporations in our former business. That when, when we started brand builders group, we were very clear that we don’t do branding for companies at all. We do personal brand strategy, exclusively for individuals. Now, every individual works at a company, but we don’t do the company strategy. It’s the face of an individual. And that every time that we have taken something where someone said, Hey, can you just like do this project for our company? It’s like, it doesn’t, it just, it just creates so much conflict and extra work. And it’s just like, it’s just not what we do. And so I think, like you’re saying, it’s just, it feels safer to offer more things. And it also like, inevitably there’s a time where someone’s going to dangle money in front of your face and you have to say, no, that’s not what we do. That’s hard.
SM (14:20):
It’s really hard. Yeah. And I’m really glad you said that because I think sometimes people think that folks like you and me advise that, but we really don’t know how difficult it is. Right. Because it’s really hard to say no. And the smaller the businesses, I think the harder it is to say no, but it’s one of the best things that you can do. And you mentioned my pal, Larry Winget earlier your friend as well. And you know, Larry says to be really successful, you’ve got to get really good at saying no. And I think truer words have never been spoken. We want to say yes to everything. And I, I, I think we sometimes confuse saying yes and making a customer experience go well, as opposed to saying yes to all of these things that will dilute our differentiation. And so you don’t want to dilute the distinction that you’re trying to create in the marketplace because Hey, no one is loyal to a generic. I mean, w we have a mutual buddy mark Sanborn, and mark talks to me all the time about this latest IPA that he’s trying, or yeah, he’s totally into craft beers. And, and mark and I were talking about, I remember those, maybe they’re still there. I haven’t seen him for a while. At least white cans in the grocery store with just black block lettering said, beer,
RV (15:39):
Chips, whatever
SM (15:42):
Nobody brags about. Yeah, I have that beer, but they do want to talk about this IPA that they’ve found it’s brewed in Maine on the ocean somewhere. And again, that kind of gets to another one of the cornerstones. I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, but you know, you like the IPA or you like the business. That’s got a story.
RV (16:04):
Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s really true. So you, you also talk about the five factors of iconic performance and going towards the idea of how do we find this distinction, and then how does that, how does that distinction manifest itself? Like in our, in our actual business, in the customer experience and the things that happen every day,
SM (16:29):
You know, what happened is I had written the book on distinction and Fairmont hotels became a really good client. And they, they went through a really cool process about, you know, what, what, what is distinctive housekeeping? You know, what, what’s the distinctive front desk? How do we, how do we take everything that touches the customer and, and even things that don’t, and what would that look like? So they went through this process, they had great success with it. And I’m having Brett first with the CEO of the Fairmont Scottsdale princess, wonderful guy named Jack Miller. And he said, man, we went through the distinction thing. Now, what do we do? I didn’t have an answer. I realized I’d written a book about how to create distinction, but, but not one how to take it to the highest level of distinction and not what, how to sustain it once you get it or how you regain it once you, you know, if you’d lose it.
SM (17:28):
And so I started studying it. It’s kind of a difficult definition, but distinction means you stand out in your field. You know, if you’re a financial advisor in Las Vegas where I live, or in Nashville where you are, you’re the go-to advisor that, that people are referring that’s distinction. You are at the top of your field, in your industry. Yet. We also know that there are businesses that transcend their industry, you know, and they’re the Annapolis. One of the case studies they use in the book, iconic is St. Elmo’s steakhouse. It’s not just the, I mean, they have higher gross revenue than Tavern on the green, in New York city. They’re one of the most successful restaurants in America. So it’s not just that, they’re the best of the restaurants, man. If you’ve got a car dealership in Indianapolis, you want to run your car dealership like St. Elmo’s runs their restaurant. That’s iconic when you’ve reached that level. And so as I studied iconic businesses, I mean, the old cliche is like Southwest airlines and apple and, you know, Starbucks and all those, but even more so regionally, locally the iconic businesses that, that a business that every business in that particular community respected, I found a really five factors. And, and the first one was they play offense. You know, I’m a sports fan and we always say defense wins championships. Yeah.
RV (18:55):
People say that all the time.
SM (18:57):
So I looked at the numbers and more top off offensive teams have won the super bowl, the top defensive teams, more top rated offensive teams. And one of the playoff games in the NFL, then the defensive teams look at what’s happening in the NBA right now. It’s running gun, man. The way you’re successful is firing up a three-pointer not by clamping down on defense, like it was 20 years ago. So, so what I found was that iconic individuals and I kind of like organizations,
RV (19:26):
You know, my high school basketball coach right now is having an aneurysm listening to this because that DCS you’re just you’re attack the fabric. The fabric of the philosophy of it’s been around for some people for a really long time, I’m drawing
SM (19:42):
A blank. Oh, where did he sign up? There? There was a high school coach and he’s, this will be his first year coaching division one colleagues. And I’m drawing a blank on where he is, but he always goes for it on fourth down. They don’t even have a punter on the team. If it’s, if it’s fourth at eight on the two yard line, they go for it, you know, on their two yard line, they still go for it. They always go for it on fourth down. And the S and, and he just says, look at the data. The data shows that the benefit of playing offense and, and pushing the ball is always greater than defense. Now, can you apply that in a business situation? And here’s what the CEO of, of that Fairmont grouped pill me later on. He said, I realized that every moment I was playing defense against the competition wasted a moment, I could be innovating to make them irrelevant.
SM (20:42):
Say that again, every moment I was playing defense against the wasted a moment, I could be innovating to make them erupt, irrelevant. Wow. I just thought, well, when he said that I’m writing that down, man, I got to get that. So, I mean, when we think about whether it’s the clue and Hey, look, I know that speakers use the same examples a lot. Well, there’s a reason for that. It’s not because we’re lazy. It’s because, so it’s so breathtakingly difficult to do. There are so few universal examples that, that you can use, but, you know, Steve jobs didn’t sit around worried about what Microsoft was doing, you know, and, and, and when we use that in our personal brand, as an example, when we play off offense, then it becomes really remarkable what, what we can achieve, because then others, you know, our competition, their natural reaction will be to play defense against us, which puts us in the driver’s
RV (21:44):
Seat. So when you, when you, like, I know you work with companies, but like, cause cause I really buy into this. AIG does as well. We we’ve, we have said consistently that it’s like we don’t care about what other people are doing. Like our philosophy is not even, it’s not even differentiate from what other people are doing. It’s find your uniqueness and exploited in the service of others is what Larry says. It’s like, do the thing that you do. And then it makes other people or other customers irrelevant. And it’s like, but, but the thing I think is people struggle so much with figuring out what is the thing that they can do that no one else can do. What is the thing that they do that is truly distinct or unique. And H how do you help people find what that is?
SM (22:37):
What a great question. And it’s one that’s often overlooked. Jeff Bezos said your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. Well, that creates an inherent problem. It, it means we’re not in the room when people are saying what our brand is. So what’s the second best thing that you can do. And so few of us do this and it’s it’s was part of my journey to try to create distinction for my speaking business. And that is, I went to the people that were booking me for speeches. I went to speakers bureaus, and I said, when you recommend me, what do you say?
SM (23:16):
And far and away, the answer at that time was a good speaker and a nice guy. Now, they thought that was great. And I realized, that’s the kiss of death, man. I mean, you know, apple is not planning their next corporate event saying, Hey, what we need, the keynote is a really nice person, but they want it. They want somebody that’s known for something. And it’s the same thing. Whether I’m picking a financial advisor or a grocery store or a, any kind of personal service or a speaker or whatever might be, there has to be something that they say. So one of two things is going to happen either. Number one, you’re going to find out that you’re thought of as a generic, Eric, you know, good at what you do and a nice person. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You know, I want to be good at what I do and I choose to be nice, but, but there has to be something more than that. Second is, if what they’re saying is precise and specific, then there’s your biggest clue. You know, about what people are saying about you, that’s what your brand is. And then at that point you’ve reached a crossroad. Are you going to exploit that? And, and as, as you say, and as Larry says, we may exploit in the best part of the term, you know, it’s not bad exploitation.
SM (24:34):
Yeah. And making the most of everything we have. And, and so is that the area that you, that you want to be known for, well then how can we ramp up what we’re doing? So we accentuate that if that’s not the areas, here’s the other aspect. It’s always tougher to reposition and to position, if I’m starting new and I’m trying to position, I have to create a memorable message that that will strike you. And that you’re going to retain to reposition. I got to get you to forget about everything you thought about me in the past, and now start thinking about me in a new way. So if you need to reposition your personal brand, you have to begin by thinking, okay, how do I, how do I come up with a message that’s so compelling? Not only will it be memorable in the marketplace that I want to succeed in it, but it will get those people to stop saying what they been saying about me and start saying, this that’s difficult. But if you don’t understand that principle, you can’t begin on the road to achieve it.
RV (25:42):
Yeah. And then to your point about clarity as a cornerstone, I think that is just super like, that’s the first thing is too many of us never even asked the question. What do I want people to say about me? What are they saying about me? And how do I, you know, change? How do I change those or align those? And we just kind of go out and we’re just like reactive to whatever shows up and whoever will hire us for this or that or anything. And we’re just like, I’ll take it. I’ll take it. I’ll take it versus going, no, this is who I’m going to be. And I’m going to drive this. I’m going to drive this space. But you know, I think it’s, I think, you know, asking your customers, asking the people who have hired you, why have you hired me?
RV (26:26):
What, what is it about me? I mean, that’s a great place to start because like you’re saying either, they’ll tell you, this is why, and this is what makes you unique, or they’ll say no specific reason, which means you’re not really unique. But then after that, do you effectively, just at some point, just decide you go, hell, I’m going to be, I’m going to be the guy known for this, and then you just own it. And you just drive it. I mean, is it that simple as you just go, what do you want to be known for pick it, own it and drive it? I mean, is that it?
SM (26:59):
Yes. I wish I wish I had a workup flex answer to that. But the decision is that I think in some ways the toughest part, because it’s defining what you are, but it’s also saying I’m, I, I have the intestinal fortitude, you know, I, I have the drive and the determination that I’m going to leave these other things behind. And I think that’s one of the most important things, Rory and establishing a personal brand. It’s it’s, it’s what UNH have done. I mean, when, when you said, this is who we are, but you also said, this is who we are. Not that decision, every, everything it’s like a tree. I mean, everything grew up from that planting from the, that decision that you made. And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s just remarkable the, the power of that decision that it gives you in your life, because it, you know, once you, once you’ve made that decision, then other decisions become more clear. Now it’s a challenge to make them, right. I mean, it’s a, it’s a challenge to, to turn down that check as we were talking earlier. But boy, when you’ve got that initial clarity, then the other decisions that you need to make, tend to become a little bit more apparent.
RV (28:17):
That is so good. Y’all most of this is a matter of just making the decision and then just driving it. I love it. Scott McCain, the book is called iconic. We put of course links to the book and to Scott on our site, Scott, where do you want people to go? If they want to follow them, follow you more, or learn more about what you’re up to.
SM (28:41):
W w where are you? One of the things that folks might do is just go to Scott mccain.com. It talks about, you know, the, the resources we have, the courses that we offer. For example, you got a course that teaches how to tell a more distinctive story, how to create distinction. You’ll find links for everything right there. And it’s M C K a I N a. So Scott mccain.com and that’ll send everybody there, Scott
RV (29:04):
Mccain, I encourage you all to follow him. And this is Scott is one of the smartest people I’ve met. He’s one of the people that we have learned from so much just about these concepts that, you know, have, have shaped our life and are shaping many of your lives by way of following us and listening to what we’re doing. So, buddy, thank you for the work you’ve done. Thank you for your being here and just your support in our life. We’re so grateful for you,
SM (29:30):
The world of you and everybody there. So thank you so much where I, I appreciate it so much, and it’s always great being a part of anything with you. So thank you.

Ep 197: Fueling Your Own Creativity, Innovation, and Productivity with Juliet Funt | Recap Episode

RV (00:02):
And we are back with the influential personal brand podcast, special recap edition of the interview I did with our good friend client and a, I would say mentor someone I’ve known for years Juliet Funt. And I have shared the stage speaking with Juliet on literally the biggest stages in the world. I mean she speaks at world-class events for world-class organizations and I’ve just, I’ve known her for years and we’ve gotten the opportunity to, to walk with her. And some of her creation around the, this book that she’s working on, which is now a a real life, a real life, a real life thing. And it is a, a joy to get a chance to talk to her about that. And obviously that’s what we were talking about. Fueling your own creativity, innovation, and productivity with this concept that she refers to as white space.
RV (01:06):
Obviously today I am rolling solo. I’m filling in for AJ who doesn’t make every episode as a, as a CEO of a fast-growing company, the mom of two toddlers she’s always got a bunch of stuff going on, so we try to catch her as much as we can. But today I’m rolling solo and I’m just gonna run you through my biggest takeaways in terms of how I’m applying, what Juliette was talking about in the interview. And then obviously in her new book a minute to think which I will tell you, I have read cover to cover. I am not able to read the book, all the books of every single podcast guests that we have on most of the people we bring on very familiar with, or I have read something of theirs in the past. This is a book that I have read cover to cover.
RV (01:51):
It is absolutely brilliant. Well-Written well edited, well-organized sharp, meaningful, clear, powerful, useful, and practical. And, you know, we touched on some of those concepts in the, in the interview. And so the, the first one to me is just that we all need more oxygen. Like we need need oxygen in our life. What she calls white space oxygen is to a fire. What are white spaces to our calendar? What oxygen is to a fire? It is just air it’s. It is margin. It, it is, it is openness and that is not a sign of weakness, or it is not a compromise in productivity. It is a necessary fuel. It is necessary to fuel productivity. And I love the way that she describes this, which is thoughtfulness interlaced throughout your day. What a great definition, thoughtfulness interlaced throughout your, and the benefit. And I thought this was super elegant and she’s super elegant in her writing.
RV (03:05):
Is that, you know, she said that the benefit here is that deceleration kicks in and you can listen to your own wisdom, how powerful and profound is that you can listen to your own wisdom. And so often so many ways. And so many days we’re going so fast, just sprinting from the next to the next, to the next to the next. It’s like trying to build a bigger fire by just piling more and more stuff on top of it. And there’s, there’s no oxygen, there’s no space, there’s no room to breathe. There is no fuel to grow the thing. And so I, I just love that. And I love the, the eloquence of being able to listen to your own wisdom. I think that is truly one of the most defining things that we do at brand builders group that is different from other, I guess I would say, you know, copywriters or people who help do, you know, identity for a brand is that we help you find your uniqueness.
RV (04:15):
We, for us, our belief is that the answers inside of you, it’s not, how are you different from everyone else? And it’s not. What do you do in relation to other people? It’s what do you do? What do you actually believe? What path have you walked down? And so much of this is being able to access your own intuition, your own insight, your own instincts, or as she describes it, your own wisdom. And in order to do that, you need white space, white spaces to your calendar, what oxygen is to a fire. And I just think that’s a brilliant, brilliant metaphor. Absolutely love it. The second takeaway for me, it was really just a question and it’s, it’s a very simple question and it’s super direct, but man, it hit, it hit me hard. And I think this question hits hard and I hope it hits hard for you.
RV (05:15):
And here’s what, here’s the question? Where are you doing high quantity, low value work? Where are you doing high quantity, low value work. And if you’re a leader if you’re not, you’re an entrepreneur with a team, or if you’re a personal brand, even managing a team of contractors, where do you have the people around you doing high quantity, low value work? Where are we running a bunch of manual processes, a bunch of, you know, manual things following a set of steps and a checklist that was created 10 years ago that, you know, we don’t even look at anymore isn’t even relevant anymore. And I just, I think this is super powerful. And I’ll tell you, one of the adjustments that I made immediately after listening to this interview was you know, our, our, our team runs the content diamond. Those of you that are, are members of brand builders group, like your members in our, our coaching community.
RV (06:13):
You know, we teach this content diamond process of repurposing content, which is brilliant and it’s amazing, and it totally works. But I, I was auditing, I went back and it was looking at some of the steps and I noticed that one of our steps is to embed a link to our YouTube video. Like we do a 60 every week, we do this five minute video and that’s, you know, we publish that on my YouTube channel or on our YouTube channel, if it’s the company stuff. And then we put it on my blog. So the bolt, my blog, Rory Vaden blog.com is the one place that you can go to access, you know, like everything that I’m doing. And so we make this really nice five minute YouTube video every week. Well, we also distill that down into a 62nd kind of teaser video.
RV (06:58):
And we embed that teaser video in LinkedIn, in LinkedIn pulse, which is LinkedIn’s blogging platform. And what I realized is we’re getting killed in the algorithm because there’s this external unique link to YouTube, which the, the, all the social media companies hate, they hate when you link to outside things. Cause that’s their whole goal is to keep you on their platform. And so we’ve got this, this one step in our process, which is embed a YouTube link, which is, you know, from years ago and our team is just doing that and we’re not watching and going, wow, we’re getting crushed in our reach, in our views. We’re not reaching anybody and going, we’re running this checklist, we’re spending however much time we’re doing it and going, we’re getting almost no value from it. So that was that was one of the things immediately that we’re, we changed in our business as a result of this interview.
RV (07:51):
And that was, that’s a question that I would ask for you, where are you doing high quantity, low value work? I think it is the, the, the, this is something that we talked about in our second book, procrastinate on purpose five permissions to multiply your time, which is that the human brain gets addicted to insignificance and trivial tasks. Why? Because when you cross an item off your to-do list or you hit delete on something in your inbox or you mark something as complete in your project management software, the human brain releases dopamine. Like if you monitor the human brain like under brain scan, there’s, there is a release of dopamine when we complete things. So we feel good. It tells us good job. Congratulations. You’re, you know, you you’re done. The problem is that the human brain releases basically the same level of dopamine, whether it’s a trivial task or a significant task, well, trivial tasks are take much less time and you can get a lot more trivial tasks done and get a lot more hits of dopamine.
RV (09:04):
So the neuroscience of your brain actually begins to work against you. You become addicted to that feeling the same way that you know, somebody is addicted to substances, like someone’s struggling with substance abuse is addicted. It’s this feeling, but in reality, what moves your business forward is not the volume of tasks that you complete, like ultra performers know that success is not about the volume of tasks you complete rather just about the significance of them while often the most significant tasks take a longer time. So you don’t check them off as quickly, which means you don’t get the hit of dopamine as frequently, which means that your brain left to its own devices. It was going to pull you back towards the insignificant, towards the trivial, towards the, the minutia, the mundane, in some cases, the meaningless. And we get addicted to this high quantity, but low value work and, and so many businesses.
RV (10:02):
And so many personal brands die on the hill of quantity. We’re just doing too many things and they’re not stopping and slowing down and decelerating and taking a moment a minute to think as the title of Juliet’s book is they’re not taking a minute to think about, does this really move the needle? Is this really valuable? Should we continue doing this? Is this high, high impact, very significant work. And if you don’t do that, you literally become addicted to the opposite. So that was just a powerful reminder for me and just a great reinforcement of some of the things that we should know, but, you know, we kind of lose sight of, and then the third, the third big takeaway least, you know, just for me listening to Juliette. And, and again, it’s, it’s, it’s really wonderful for me to be able to have this interview because I’ve read the manuscript cover to cover, like we’ve, we’ve walked with her a lot through just kind of helping her organize some of this.
RV (11:08):
And, and I mean, I, this book is going to be incredible. Y’all this is going to be a major book. Like, I think this is going to this that’s. The other thing is you know, random side note here is you should go, you know, to her site and you should watch what she’s doing. Cause this, I think this is going to be a really big business book. That’s going to have a lot of staying power. And it’s gonna make a big splash in the space. So you know, even if you don’t buy it for yourself, I think it’s like pay attention and watch what she does and how she does some of these things around the launch. But the third takeaway, which is another kind of sobering simple passion is just, are you scared of quiet?
RV (11:55):
Are you scared of quiet? Are you scared of sitting with your own thoughts? Are you scared of sitting still? Are you afraid of trusting that things can actually work out for you without your full control? That is a deeply profound concept and question that I just love how she ties it into like the practicality of every day, you know, productivity, but that is where the deep work happens. And you know, that’s why so many clients who work with us at brand builders group, you know, they come through our phase one course, one brand DNA experience. And they’re amazed at how deep the work is for most of our client. Well, for all of our clients, the very first encounter with us as is almost like it’s cathartic, it’s therapeutic. It’s, it’s, it’s almost, it’s almost spiritual because we’re going on this deep introspective journey of figuring out what is your uniqueness?
RV (13:06):
What is the problem that you can solve in the world that no one else can solve? What are you uniquely positioned to do? How, and who are you uniquely positioned to serve? And that’s what happens. First, later comes all the mechanics of here’s, how to launch a podcast and here’s how to write a book and here’s how to do a book launch. And here’s how to create a keynote. And, and, and here’s how to get booked for a keynote speech. And, you know, here’s how to build a company. Here’s how to do a sales call. And here’s how to build the funnel that dah, dah, dah, like we’ve got 14 events, 14 different two day experiences in our formal curriculum, as of right now. But the very first one finding your brand DNA is this, this deep work. And there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of exercises.
RV (13:47):
There’s, there’s not that much education. I would say in our very first phase one course, one of our, our whole journey, because a lot of it is just questions. We’re basically just peppering people with these questions that, you know, they go through this sort of like self exploration to find their uniqueness, to figure out who they serve, what problem do they solve? How do they solve it? And what’s the fastest path to cash solving that problem. But so many of us are scared of the quiet. We’re scared to be reflective. We’re we’re, we’re, we’re S we’re scared to be introspective. We’re scared to just listen to our own wisdom. And I think when, when you force yourself to, to have some quiet, you force yourself to face your fears.
RV (14:46):
It is in the quiet that we are unmistakably confronted with the things that challenge us, which is scary, but it also puts us in the ring with our fears. It puts us face to face with our fears and inevitably, and almost always, we beat those fears. We conquer those fears. We find the answers. We defeat the problems in that quiet. So while it is scary, it’s also tremendously empowering. And I believe, and I have experienced from my own life. And I believe this to be true for you is that if you take a moment to sit in the quiet, those fears and concerns may come up, but then you can see them. And if you can see your fear, then you can face your fear. And if you face your fear, you can defeat your fear. If you’re willing to sit in the quiet and inside of that silent conversation of prayer and meditation, or just being with your own thoughts, you are allowed to experience and explore the miracles of everyday life to write your own escape from the mental prisons of limiting beliefs of our own construction. So take a little time to have a little white space, white spaces to your calendar, but oxygen is to a fire allow for some quiet allow for a minute to think and know that your highest value work will come from your highest value answers, which you will most likely find in your quietest times. We’ll catch you next time.

Ep 196: Fueling Your Own Creativity, Innovation, and Productivity with Juliet Funt

RV (00:07):
You friends that I have that are scary, smart, super intelligent Juliet Funt is one of those friends I’ve known her for years, basically met her as a kid running around at the national speakers association when I was like in my early twenties. And she is one of the best speakers in the world. And I’ve shared some of the biggest, some of the biggest stages that I’ve ever been on. She has been there too, and we’ve kind of hung out, you know, my second book hung out a little bit in some of her space. She has a concept called white space, which is really about helping people just kind of reclaim their, their strategic pauses and thinking time and giving, giving them the time to sort of have more, a bit of margin and a, a bit of breadth in their daily life, so that we can be more creative and more productive. And so we’ve hung out a little bit in some of those circles and she’s just kind of an expert on, you know, managing all this busy-ness and overwhelm. And she got a great book deal. I’ll leave it at that. She got a very wonderful book deal with a major publisher, which we maybe we’ll talk a little bit about some, because she’s fresh done with turning in the manuscript for a real massive project. And anyways, Juliet, it’s great to have you welcome back
JF (01:29):
To I’m so thrilled to be here.
RV (01:31):
Yeah. So the new book is called a minute to think it is, and we all need to us talk to us about what is white space submitted to think what, what is all of this? And, and why does it matter?
JF (01:45):
The, there is this need for oxygen in the system of our days, and we needed it before the pandemic, but boy, howdy. I can’t even imagine a time in history that we needed it more. And that, that oxygen is really the foundational metaphor. It’s kind of, if you imagine you’re building a fire and you took paper and pine needles and logs, and you stack them all up and you tried to light it, nothing would happen. But if you added one critical ingredient of space, everything would beautifully ignite. And we are the same in our work is the same. And our creativity is the same. And yet we don’t have that oxygen. There’s no oxygen to feed the fire.
RV (02:21):
Mm. That is such a beautiful, distinct, sharp, accurate metaphor. There’s just, there’s no space. I mean, in the concept white space, of course, you’re referring to like calendar eyes, like you’re talking about counter space, everything is crammed together. And, and it feels like, especially with COVID like you used to like walk down the hall to a meeting and at least have 10 seconds to like walk down the hall to the next meeting. And now it’s like one zoom is over and the next zoom is starting. There’s like, literally not a breath right before we’re just running to the next thing.
JF (02:57):
The tactic we’ve discussed is if you can’t get a bio break, you just wait for a really chatty person and then you can mute P and returned before they, before you, you have to double check the mute, but that’s sometimes the only respite to get to get a second. And it’s so inhumane to begin with, but it’s also so unproductive. It’s so unproductive to take people that you’ve worked to find and hire and head hunt in these genius pieces of talent, and then put them in a deoxygenated environment where they’re just going to shrivel. It’s a, it’s a lot.
RV (03:28):
I mean, so why is that? Like, why, why is it so unproductive? I mean, a lot of the people listening are pretty hard driving, you know, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs practitioners. Is that really true? I mean, I don’t know that everyone takes that as truth to go, like, you know, maximize every second of every day. And it’s kind of like some of, some of us, that’s kind of how we got to where we are. Right. And so you’re saying, well, Hey, you should, you know but I think the oxygen metaphor is so good, but like, I guess what, what gives you so much confidence or like to go like, Hey, that’s not actually productive. Like at some point that caps out,
JF (04:09):
First of all, we can look into, I know you have a lot of entrepreneurs, solopreneurs authors, writers authors, speakers, but first you, if you start with the corporate heck a heck hole, if there’s a appropriate way to say that, of course work that there, there, there is the easiest place to quantify the problem. So when you ask employees, what part of their work feels wasteful and meaningless, and like, it’s just a drain on their entire lives. They will report 20 to 30% of the tasks that they touch are stupid. And if you take those 20 to 30% of those illogical, unnecessary nonsense tasks, and you quantify them based on the salary value of that human being per hour, you can actually come up with a distinct number. It’s a million dollars for every 50 people annually is spent on work that has no value.
RV (04:57):
Whoa, say that again?
JF (05:00):
Yeah. I’ll give you even a visual. It’s a million for $51 million for every 50 employees. But that means, think of it as if you took 12 out of every 50 people and just let them eat Doritos and play video games all day long. And that was their entire contribution. That’s the level of waste.
RV (05:15):
That’s the job that I want right there. Retos and play videos and the crash. Yeah. The rest of you suckers are cranking out the work and getting stuff done. 12 out of 50 people just not doing anything
JF (05:30):
So that, and that wasteful that willingness to let that much waste in the system comes from the fact that we worship activity and not productivity, and that they are two different things that just because we’re moving and checking boxes and doing doesn’t mean we’re actually producing, building, creating something of value. So that common misperception is the seat of the corporate example. Then you move to all of us, the speakers, the the people who are just working it, yes, we have to work incredibly hard to get where we’re going. But little sips of thoughtful time are necessary to make sure that we’re not working. Blisteringly hard in the wrong direction. In order to, if you take a moment to reflect on where you’d like to go, what’s your highest value? What is the most important thing that I can touch next? These critical junctures of thoughtfulness change the nature and the trajectory of the work that you do do so that it’s not just mania heading in any direction that you, that your head that you’re pointed.
RV (06:28):
And I think that’s actually a pretty accurate description of personal brands. It’s kind of mania, right? It’s like, I’m on Instagram, I’m on Snapchat. I’m doing my podcast. I’m like trying to do a speaking gig. I’m working on a webinar, I’m building a funnel, I’m writing email copy. I’m doing my group, my, my graphic design. I’m updating my press kit, like, right. Like, and, and, and so are you saying to work less, like, is that the, is that the goal here is to, is to do less work less?
JF (06:58):
No. For, for those corporate people I’m talking about, we want to remove that wasteful work, but I’m not talking specifically about working less. Although I do think that there are fascinating framings being put out now by people like Michael Hyatt, who’s entire giant teams on a six hour day and finding it exactly as effective as an eight hour day was. So there, there are interesting people playing in the work less space, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that without the ability to pause in between the activities of what you do, you can’t oxygenate those efforts correctly. So let me, let me walk you through what it looks like in real life. When you finish writing the pot there, script for your blog, and then you’re going to move to checking your new headshots. And then you’re going to check to w oh, your Instagram feed.
JF (07:42):
If you’re jumping from one to the other, to the other, you don’t have time to do a few things. There’s no time to digest the lessons or reflections from what you just did. And there’s no time to plan appropriately to be spectacularly. Excellent. In the next thing that you pick up, there’s no time to shift your mind from human being interactive on Monaco mode to deep creative work mode. When we don’t have transition time. And the, those little spaces open up the day and they infuse it with thoughtfulness, creativity, purposefulness, they allow us to catch ourselves before mistakes, like answering too fast to an email or responding too fast to a question. This habit of thoughtfulness, interlaced affects everything.
RV (08:27):
Yeah. So you’re not this isn’t like a, you know, take a six month sabbatical yoga retreat every year. And like, do that really? You’re saying thought, I love that, that last phrase, you said thoughtfulness interlaced throughout the day. You know, and I was thinking about it makes the first thing that came to my mind was that, so a brand builders group, we’re a classic example of this. Like we started growing really fast, got a marketing team. And then the marketing team went off in a thousand directions and everyone started doing stuff. We literally got less results with like 20 people in marketing than we used to get with two. Because everyone was like, they just start, they were just competing for, they were just competing for priorities. Nothing was actually going forward. It was all like going sideways. And then we’re like, okay, we’re going to do one launch a month. There’s only one thing that we do every month. Because even if you only do one thing a month, you’re not actually doing one thing a month, you’re doing that thing. But you’re optimizing the thing that you did the month before. And you’re preparing for the thing that is coming next. And we had no space and time before that, cause it was just a constant like race. And you’re saying that happens all the time, low value,
JF (09:51):
Quantity work. If you think of that phrase, it’s not something that you want to be producing as a company, but many of us are generating low value, quantity work. And one of my favorite metaphors for this as if I, I spoke to a mole scientist once who studies moles, little, the little burying kind of critter, and what they do in mole land is they don’t have any specific direction that they dig, but they dig very, very fervently for the entire day. So they just put their little paws up and they just go in any direction. They happen to be digging and then they give it their all. And they really work hard all day long, but that’s, we don’t want to be moles. We don’t want to be randomly going in any direction. We want to be purposeful and thoughtful. So it just a minute ago, you and I were talking in prep about I’m four weeks away from book launch, the craziest starting, the, the opportunities are raining down.
JF (10:45):
Should I be writing to clients? Should I be on podcasts, should be, I’d be writing special print media. And I took a minute and we got slow. And we said, what? I said, what is the one thing? What are the two or three things? And just that deceleration will kick in your own wisdom. It’s just a matter of getting off the speed for a minute to say, oh right, wait a minute. I’m just realizing that I just prepped 400 emails on a project that I’m not really invested in, but I’m just getting off on the sending, sending, sending, sending, sending. And if we take a minute to think before that you can avert all that work.
RV (11:22):
Yeah. I wonder how much of it is like, it’s really weird. There’s like because on the one hand it’s overwhelming and exhausting and daunting and all of those things. But on the other hand, it’s almost like we do this busy-ness as a defense mechanism from having to like stop and really go is what I’m doing really matter. Is this really smart? Do I really even enjoy the thing that I’m doing? And it, it feels like we do that. It’s almost like we’re addicted to moving fast. Cause it like prevents us from having to sit with our thoughts
JF (12:03):
And deep work is really scary. So the Cal Newport style deep work where we go in and we create things that are like one gorgeous piece of sushi. That’s sitting on a platter that’s so rich and so flavorful that you don’t need anything with it. That that’s just spectacular. That kind of work to produce tight. Gorgeous, rich work is really hard. And it’s really lonely. If you’re into any degree in extroverted person, you like relational tasks, I write to you and marketing writes to me and sales writes to marketing and I chat with you and I’m on zoom with you. So all of that relational stuff, factors in to what we miss when we try, try to slow things down and do quieter work. So there are a lot of addictive and habitual and adrenaline based reasons that we avoid it. But sometimes that’s where the gold is.
RV (12:54):
Talk to me about that when it comes to writing your book, because this is the world that you’ve been living in here for the last several months is like you go from being this incredibly successful speaker and you got this training company and you’re working with major companies. And you know, like when I’d say I’ll Dulia to speaking at events, I mean, she’s, she’s doing events where there’s 10,000 people in the room. There’s there’s 85,000, a hundred half a million people watching live 7,500 in a room, 30,000 watching on a live stream, a big time stuff. You go from doing all that to be like, Hey, your manuscript’s due in four months. And now you are, this is that’s exactly what you just went through, right? Like how was that experience for you?
JF (13:40):
That’s why I didn’t write a book for 20 years because know, being alone. I don’t like that. Just me and the empty word document is a terrifying place. I will clean the kitchen. I will check social. I will research orthodontic things that my children need. I’ll do anything to try to avoid being in that scary, lonely place of just me and the paper. But the way that it worked for me was when the moment was ready, the right agent and the right message and it all kind of crystallized. And then I had to figure out what the writing process was going to be for an extroverted person who was scared of the quiet. And what worked for me was always writing on retreat. My writing style was that for a year and a half, I went away one day a week and wrote, and there was no email, no children, no husband, no same environment, nothing I’d go to a hotel or I’d go somewhere else. And I would be alone with the book and that kind of compartmentalization has always worked really wonderfully for me. And it worked really, really well for this.
RV (14:45):
So, so I want to talk about the editing process. So I love that and I, I right. The same way except both of my books I wrote in a week. So I do it. I just, I like disappear from the world for like seven days. And just, it’s like a, it’s like a what do they call it? When you like binge like a ranger, like a bender, it’s like a binder. It’s like a writing bender that and, and cause it’s the same way. It’s like the only way I can really like get focused is to like be, you know, just to remove from everything. But then you actually get the book written and people are always, people are always off when they talk to me because they’re like, I just got my, I just finished my manuscript and I go, congratulations.
RV (15:35):
You’re 20% of the way done from having an hour towards having that actual book. Oh, so true. They’re so mad at because it’s like, I think writing is one of those things you can hear. It’s you know, Mitch Hedberg used to describe pancake. Do you know who Mitch Hedberg is? No. Oh my gosh. He’s one of my favorite comedians. He died of a drug overdose, which is sad, but he was really brilliant. And he used to say, it’s like pancakes at the beginning, they’re all warm and fluffy. And then by the end, you’re just fricking sick of them, like writing the same way. Like you’re like, oh, this is so exciting. I’m writing my book. And then, and then it’s just like, then you have to edit. And you’re like, I’m so sick of this. I want to read. So talk to you about the
JF (16:23):
Editing. How about when you’re done, I’ll go back to that. But how about when you’re done editing and you finally get done with these sticky cold pancakes and then they go now, the next year of your life is going to be being on podcasts, repeating back the same pancakes for the rest of your career. It’s very difficult. The funny thing about the editing process was how unprepared underprepared I was for what exactly was going to happen. So I’m with a major publisher. Okay.
RV (16:49):
For the editing pro you were under prepared for the editing process
JF (16:53):
Completely because so Harper Collins is our publisher. I have a wonderful, wonderful publisher named Hollis. And on the day of January 1st, when we turned in the book, we had a party because the book was dead and I turned it in. It was finished. And then they send back around about a month later and you sit down and go, oh my God, there’s two days of work in copy editing and checking all this stuff in this round to read it again. And then you send back all those changes. Then they send back another round over the course of three or four months. They sent back round after round on the third round, after being on retreat, intensely editing round one and round two of what I thought was a completed manuscript. I sent back 290 changes on the third round. So some of that is just my own perfectionistic tendencies and how much I care about this particular book, being a spectacularly unique and beautiful book, but it’s not done when you think it’s done.
JF (17:45):
You think it’s done when you turn it in? It, it isn’t even done until the day that the printers rip it out of their hands and say, we have to have this now, or we’re going to miss the deadline. You just keep tweaking it. And then as I told you, before smart people start to say things that you wish you’d written in it, and now it’s finished and you go, oh my gosh. If I just had that conversation with Joel, before we locked the manuscript, I would have completely changed a, B or C. And I’m prepared for that to just keep going.
RV (18:14):
I mean, this is, what’s crazy too about a book, right? Is like, you go through this, you know, and it’s, it’s a lifetime to build a platform. Then you give a proposal, you get an agent, you get a deal, you do the manuscript. There’s 75,000 edits. Then you’re just exhausted. Like you ran a hundred mile race and they’re like, congratulations. You’ve reached the starting line, which is now you’re going to do your book promotion for the next eight, eight months. And then at the end of it, all you sell the thing for $22 and 50 95 cents. Meanwhile, you could throw your iPhone on record a video course and sell it for 500 bucks by this afternoon. And that’s, but that’s what I think makes books so beautiful and still so relevant and so important. It’s it’s the work that you do. It’s the, the amount of space and oxygen that, that went into building this beautiful thing and over and over and refining it.
JF (19:09):
It’s a lot of great things. I mean, it is a, if you got a decent advance, you’re going to be very old and gray before you even see a dollar of that 22. So that’s another thing is this is the most free work I’ve ever done in my career over the last three, three years on this book. But the beautiful thing about writing a book is it takes content that is in a raw form and it causes you to sit with that content and tweak it and play with it and marinated and step away from it and come back to it. And the end of it, you open it up almost as if you hadn’t been part of the process and you say, this is wonderful. And it, it comes to fruition like a child growing into him, you know, like a boy growing into a man there’s this day where you look at and go, wow, I have goosebumps right now telling you the story of getting goosebumps about looking at it, because you think now it’s ready. It works. It’s clean, it’s easy. Maybe it’s enjoyable. And wow. It came together and that’s, that’s a Mo the most thrilling, creative process that I’ve ever been involved in. And that has nothing to do with whether it’s sells or makes me famous or makes a dollar from here.
JF (20:16):
And this,
RV (20:18):
Everything you just described, the beauty of that, which we’ve in the context of this conversation, been talking about in these, what we would call and take the stairs harvest season of focus, but it’s almost like white space in a minute to think it’s almost like you get a little bit of that in everything you do. If you just breathe for a second, you kind of infuse that same level of creativity, wonder and innovation into your entire day. Just like little bits of it. Time,
JF (20:54):
If you have the habit of the pause inside your bones, what happens is that it naturally shows up for you without trying. So on those writing days, I would write or edit for 12 hours. But if I happen to catch out of the corner of my eye, a pretty sunset while I was writing, or if I happened to notice that my hands were really enjoying the warmth of my tea cup while I was holding it, it would be second nature for me to pause and go with that, go with that for a minute. If I was writing and I had a little grain of an idea in some critical voice at all, that’s silly or not worth it. My habit of the pause would tell me to stop and hang with it for a minute before dismissing it. And so what happens is once the pause becomes your practice, it comes to you naturally like breathing and you get the sense of pausing going, going pausing. I definitely believe that there are harvest seasons. I believe that balance is like the stock market and, and it goes up and it goes down. And right now I’m in a book launch. And not as balanced as I am in other times, but if you can think of it as an interlacing, just a beautiful sign curve of go stop, go stop, go stop. I believe that you’ll be stronger, longer and better in the work that you do.
RV (22:08):
That is marvelous. So w the, book’s called a minute to think where do you want people to go to read about it? Find out about it, connect with you,
JF (22:19):
Juliet funt.com is where you can get the book. Hopefully that you’ll share with your team, because we have a very, very strong impetus for people to discuss this work together. So it comes to life. When you say, I think, what do you think about this? And how can you apply it and what feels safe in the world of busy-ness to take pauses? It’s a wonderful thing. And they’re, they can also take something called the busy-ness test, which is a quiz that any of your listeners can go to to understand where are the most pernicious thieves of their own time, and where do they come from and how they can stop them uniquely for them?
RV (22:51):
Love it. Well, we’ll link up to Juliet funt.com and also the book a minute to think it is called, check it out, profound, powerful, insightful both accelerating and decelerating to your life at the same time. Really, really a magic Joel. I’ve read through the entire manuscript. I absolutely love it. Fully endorsed this book, check it out. Juliet, thank you for making time for us. And we wish you the best. Always. Great. Thanks.

Ep 185: 4 Keys to Reinventing Your Career and Your Personal Brand with Pete Wilson | Recap Episode

RV (00:02):

Hey, welcome to the special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Although I guess it’s not necessarily a special recap. We do a recap after every episode, but one thing that is special is that my co-host and wife and our CEO brand builders group, AJ Vaden, is here with us today. She’s, she’s been out for a couple of these. And so she’s here, we’re breaking down the interview with Pete Wilson. Long-Time personal friend of ours. You know, as you probably listened to the episode, he was our pastor for several years. And I mean, for a decade. Yeah. I mean, and what a powerful episode age at like it was, it was it, I was blown away. So I’ll kick it over to you to sh to share you know, some of your highlights. Yeah.

AJV (00:50):

Honestly, there are so many good nuggets and one-liners, and it’s hard not to just brag on the whole episode because of how much I really love Pete, but I will narrow it down to the three biggest ones. I think that are really important. And so much of the whole episode is about reinvention. It’s about where are you going next? And I just love that because I know so many of the people listening to this podcast are in some version of reinvention right now, right? It’s, you’re leaving a previous career to start a new one, or you’re doing this whole new thing. That’s really a passion or a calling on your heart, this mission and it’s new. And for others, you’ve been doing it for a long time, but now you want to talk about a new subject. And I just kind of feel like this is relevant because it touches every single person, no matter where you are, maybe you’re reinventing and your personal life, right? All of these different stages of life that we go through just by the nature of growing as humans, we are always reinventing. And so he said something earlier on in the interview that I just thought was so, so important. And he said, and I won’t get it right. So I won’t, I’m not going to try to quote this, but this is my paraphrase version.

AJV (02:09):

Is that the things that you think are blocking your path are not, those are the things that create your path. That is your path. And I think so often, at least in my life I think so often you see these huge barriers as the things that are preventing you from going to the next level or from doing the next thing. Or in many times, they’re just excuses of why you, can’t, why there’s not enough time or resources. He’s going no, no no, these are your path, the challenges and the, what you consider the blockades that no, that is your path. That is your journey. And so it’s not to try to avoid them. It’s to no, it’s actually to lean into them because that is the path and whoever you’re going to be on the other side is, is a part of this reinvention and this journey altogether.

AJV (03:02):

And I just, I love that because so often I think, at least for me, you want to avoid the pain. You want to try to sidestep it as much as possible. And all you want to see is progress, progress, progress. When in truth. So much of Pete’s interview is like, no, it’s not always forward motion. A lot of times it’s backpedaling to figure out what direction you need to go in. And it’s not always forward motion, but that doesn’t mean you’re not moving forward. It just means you’re not feeling like you’re not moving forward. But in, in truth, that is the process of reinvention to begin with. So I just, I loved it. I thought it was just a cornerstone of the whole interview.

RV (03:39):

Yeah. I wrote that down too. And I actually put the same note. I’m not exactly sure how he said this, but something about that, you know, the things that you think are blocking your path, they aren’t blocking your path. They are the path. And like when I look at our life, you know, me and you, and whether it’s in business or personal, everything that has felt like, you know, a challenge that’s like, oh, this thing’s in the way, like I got to get out of the way. It’s like, that’s the actual thing that grows you and develops you and builds you into the person you need to become for the next level. And I definitely like that was so profound for me personally, in this interview that I think my approach to problems has been more of like, how can I get them out of my way versus how can I go through this? What am I supposed to learn from this? Who am I supposed to become by this? And I mean, just like you said, it’s one reason that we’ve, we both love Pete so much is he’s just got such a profound wisdom and ability to like, create those little distinctions. So, so that was my first takeaway too. So I, I actually don’t, I don’t really have any, anything else to add. So what was your second

AJV (04:56):

One? Yeah, for my second takeaway, actually didn’t happen in the interview and these are in no order. So this could have been my first takeaway, but it wasn’t about anything that happened in the interview. So this is more of a behind the scenes of how the interview came to me. And I follow Pete on Instagram and social media and just like his little one-liners and to get his perspective on things. And, and I reached out to him randomly, what, I don’t know, couple months ago. And I said, Hey I love this new brand that you’re building. And a lot of it is with his wife and so resonate with that being in business with my partner or my husband. And I said, I really love this new take on all these things that you’re talking about. And would you ever be interested in being a guest on our podcast, the influential brand podcast and his very first responses? Well, I don’t know if I have anything to share with your audience. What are you thinking? What do you mean it’s? You are a, like literally a professional presenter presenting brand new speeches every single week for almost 20 years. He did that on a weekly. It’s like you’ve got successful books. You’ve been on huge tours. You’ve been a part of these enormous conferences, and you’ve got this following and you are reinventing, didn’t

RV (06:17):

He speak at woman of faith conference? Wasn’t he one of the, like, that’s a

AJV (06:21):

Monster. He’s now got this podcast and he’s doing this whole personal brand thing. And he’s got this coaching program. I kind of thought to myself, what are you talking about? And that’s why I gave him like 10. I was like, well, you could talk about this or this or this. I said, what I’d really love is to talk about reinvention. And during that whole process, what I wanted to do is take a step back and be like, do you not realize the breadth of knowledge and wisdom that you already possess in this field? Like you have had multi book publishing deals, you have spoken thousands, thousands of times to huge audiences. Do you, you know, all these things. And then it made me think about how often for all of us, it’s so easy to see the beauty and others, but not see our own power and our own strengths.

AJV (07:15):

Because we don’t view ourselves the same way. Wow. I thought this was such a great reminder to myself and to everyone. It’s we, we de-value our own accomplishments and forget that. No, truly through this process of reinventing it’s like you already have these skillsets, you already have the skillsets to produce great content to interview people, to share a message, to do whatever it is you want to do. We just have to realign how we view the skills that we’ve accumulated over the years and apply them in a new way. That doesn’t mean you don’t have them. It just means they’re being applied in new and different ways. And it got me thinking if some of our other clients who have said similar things of like, well, I’m, you know, here I am, you know, 30 years later in my career and I’m mid fifties and I’m starting over.

AJV (08:10):

And you know, Pete said this too is like, you’re never starting over. Hey man, like you have spent 30 years growing into who you are that allows you to be exactly where you are. And it’s like, no, we’re not starting over. You may be starting a new thing, but you are not starting over. You can do this, you already have the skills to do it. And so often we don’t see that in ourselves, but it’s so easy to see it in the people around us. And it’s like, you know, sometimes I just wish if we could see ourselves the way that others see us, how much further along we would be and all of our dreams and all of our passions and all of our goals. And I think so much of that came out and not just this interview, but even in my approach of getting him to be on this show was well, there’s at least 10 things I can think of immediately. That would be so genuinely helpful for our audience. And just again, at this thought to myself, how many of us live in that seat where it’s like, I mean, I’m starting over. I don’t know what to do. And it’s like, no, no, you do. You just have to learn to apply those skills in a new way, but you know what to do and you can do it. Or you just got to get a different perspective on how to use the talents you already have.

RV (09:29):

That’s such a great perspective. I mean, that’s the, that’s the word and thanks for sharing that. Cause I know you, you reached out to him. I wasn’t even in the conversation and it was like on the calendar. I was like, oh, we’re talking to Pete. That’s so great. And that’s so, so powerful for me. My second takeaway actually I have to say was a mix from both Pete and you a day, like it’s, I’m going to call this. The beauty of the blank slate was, was really my big takeaway. And I think what, what Pete said was basically I want to do some things that I did before, but do them in a healthier way. And that really spoke to me because of our personal situation. I mean, to what you were just saying, it’s like brand builders group has come really far in three years.

RV (10:21):

And part of the reason is because it’s not been three years, we, we had, even though we started over, we had a lot of relationships and knowledge and et cetera that we, that we were building from. And then something that you said, you know, it’s kind of in this context of like just appreciating the beauty of the blank slate versus being scared by it or intimidated or frustrated by it where you said, I didn’t want the life I had before, so why do I miss it now that really hit me hard because I think a lot of people do that, where we go, we think about the old days, like they were the good old days, but it’s like, there was a lot of pain back then. Like there was a lot of hardship that, you know, when you, when you’re, re-inventing, there’s this beauty that you can create it to become whatever you want it to become. And I think one of the most important decisions that we have made in this phase of our life personally, was when we started BBG, we very deliberately said, if we can’t build it between nine and five, we’re not going to build it. Like we have to be able to build this business between the hours of nine and five, you know, and God gave us a couple of kids to help hold us accountable to that. So that has helped. And for the most part, yeah,

AJV (11:36):

I have been held also accountable to that. I mean a lot better. Yes. Much better. It’s definitely a more concerted effort.

RV (11:45):

Yeah. We, we’ve not been perfect about it. No doubt about it. But, but anyway, it’s just that, that concept of a chance to go, what do I, my life to be right now? What do I want most right now that’s the beauty of a blank slate. And I think a lot of times we look at it as like this massive setback and in reality, it’s this beautiful kind of blue ocean. And so anyways, that was a nod to both you and P cause that that really hit me hard. Yeah.

AJV (12:11):

Well, mine is my third point is somewhat similar to that, but I’m just a little bit just slightly different. And one of the things that I thought was really important that he said that both, you know, I think struck a chord with me, which is why it was my third point was something along the lines of, I did so many things wrong before and was working 70 and 80 hour weeks and not getting enough quality family time and, you know, putting work first and just all these different things. And it just stuck with me around like how often we do that and how all of a sudden our, our, our job becomes the number one thing in our life ahead of all others. And, but what if our job was really more of our calling, that was the mission that we were built for.

AJV (13:03):

It was a passion that we felt within us, where there was no real line between, you know, personal and professional because they were the same. And how would that change the way that we saw things and the way that we did, you know, quote unquote work and the way that we talked about things and would that create more stress or less stress, more overwhelm or less overwhelmed, or would it create more energy, more happiness? Because we were actually living out the thing that we were put on this earth to do versus a thing that we are doing to make money, to then get to do things that we think we want to do. And it just something around when he said about the miss prioritization of time and money and resources, and we we’ve all been there, we’ve all done it. In some regards, I spent 12 years of my life doing that.

AJV (13:57):

But if you really say, no, it’s like, this is my calling. This is what I felt like I was born to do in this world. Then what it really feels like work anymore. And it’s like, how much more dedicated and relentless would we be to fulfilling that calling if that’s how we really viewed it. Versus I have this passion that I’m working on, part-time on the side after hours, what would it look like if that was actually what you did all day, every day and this just removing this line between work and all other things, because it really isn’t work. It’s your calling, it’s what you were meant to do. And, you know, he talked a little bit about the process of finding that. So I’m not going to get all the secrets away from the interviews. I really think you should go listen to it. But I thought it was just a very good introspective question, but then also a take on how we do things versus how we’ve done things. And if you just shift that what a difference that it will make in, in your work.

RV (15:02):

Yeah, that’s good. Like the, the, the, the less sharp that line is probably the less stress you feel, even though you might be spending more hours on it, it’s like you’re doing, it’s not work. It makes me think of this happened to AJ. And I recently, like this last week, we were on vacation and this email came through at literally 10:00 PM at night. It was a media request and it said, Hey, you know, yada, yada, we heard about your personal branding study. We’re running a story. We’d like you to comment on it. It’s for T it’s for it’s for tomorrow. I think it said for TV for, for tomorrow morning. And my first response was, well, I was actually going, well, no, this is family time vacation. Like, we can’t do it. And I, you know, AJ was like, what are you reading? And I said this, and she’s like, oh yeah, we should do this. And so there was something in the way it was worded that it must’ve felt like to you. It was like, no, this is more of like a calling this isn’t like working in and we did it. So we took the time we did this at like 11 at night. They ran,

AJV (16:09):

He did it because I looked similar to right now. I know many of you listening can’t see me, but I didn’t have a makeup. Didn’t I had my hair done, had to spend 12 hours traveling with two toddlers. And I was like, yeah, I’m going to go ahead and have you do that. You go do that. I’m going to get ready for bed. It’s more of what happened,

RV (16:27):

But, well, yeah, so, you know, but it was your decision to do it. Like you said, Hey, we should do this. And you, and, and, and it was like, Hey, go ahead and do this. And so we did the interview and y’all, they, they aired it and then it got picked up by good morning, America. And the next morning we didn’t even know someone texts us back and was like, Hey, did you see this on good morning America? We had no idea. And, you know, just anyways to that blend of like, if something feels like a calling versus just like, you know, it’s this corporate thing, I’m all a job. That’s super powerful. And, and, you know, so anyways, my third, my third point is super quick, but it was, so this was really important. And I, I’m pretty sure this is a verbatim quote from Pete.

RV (17:09):

He said, when you change your mission, change your metric. And that was huge because it was like, how often do we go? You know what, I’m going to take this job because I want less stress and I want more passion, but then we go, oh, but I’m not making as much money. And then we let stress creep in. Cause it’s like, we’re not making as much money. And it’s like, you changed your mission. Like your mission used to be money, or it used to be followers, or it used to me promotions or job titles, or it used to be all these things. And then we change it. And then we, we strap ourselves. We kind of like imprison ourselves to the metric of success of the old versus being able to freely pursue and, and, and live in the metric of, of the new thing, which is, which is the blank slate in the reinvention. So that’s just a quick one that I wanted to mention. That’s good. That’s good. So anything else you want to add AJ?

AJV (18:08):

It’s good. It’s really good. Not just because it’s on our podcast because we’re biased, but because I truly believe that at some level, every single person at every single phase of their life is in the process of re-invention. And he really talks about these three steps, these three phases that are just naturally occurring when you’re reinventing and they appeal to you right now today. So highly encouraged. It’s worth a, a 40 minute. Listen,

RV (18:38):

Do that, go listen and keep coming back. We’re so grateful for you. We’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 184: 4 Keys to Reinventing Your Career and Your Personal Brand with Pete Wilson

RV (00:06):
Hey, Brand Builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out this interview as always, it’s our honor to provide it to you for free and wanted to let you know there’s no big sales pitch or anything coming at the end. However, if you are someone who is looking to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and get to know you a little bit and hear about some of your dreams and visions and share with you a little bit about what we’re up to to see if we might be a fit. So if you’re interested in a free strategy call with someone from our team, we would love to hear from you. You can do that at brand builders, group.com/pod call brand builders, group.com/podcast. We hope to talk to you soon. Pete Wilson is our former pastor.
RV (00:57):
We love Pete Wilson. He was the founder and senior pastor of our church that we still go to in Nashville. It’s called cross point. It was one of the fastest growing churches in America and to reach 10,000 people each weekend. During that time, Pete published four books with Thomas Nelson, including his bestseller plan B, which we have read through together. And then in 2019 he started good vibes management, which is an organization that kind of pairs up celebrities with court with like corporate brands. So this is people like Kane brown and Tim McGraw with, with brands like boys and girls club of America and the MBA to do these inspiring press grabbing projects while also giving renewed purpose to the celebrities platform, which is super cool. And today he also hosts a new podcast called the good talk podcast with his wife where they inspire people to be healthier and happier and more purpose-driven versions of themselves. We’ve been friends for years. I mean, a decade a decade at this point, Pete was one of the first people we met when we moved to Nashville. And anyways, we just love this guy. And you’ll notice AJ is sitting here with me because she hijacked this episode because she was like, I want Pete to come and I’m coming too.
AJV (00:57):

New Speaker (02:23):
Very rare that I do a co-hosted interview. And it’s not to just say, I wouldn’t want to be on all the episodes that typically our schedules don’t align, but since I scheduled this one, I made it work
RV (02:37):
Anyways, buddy, welcome to the show. It’s great to see you.
PW (02:40):
Thank you. It’s an honor. It really is. I’ve been looking forward to this for so long as you know, I’m a huge fan of both of you. I’m a huge fan of this podcast. So it it’s, it’s great to be here.
RV (02:52):
Yeah, well, I, and, and I think one of the reasons that, you know, obviously our relationship with you, but, but AJ has a knack for reinvention.
AJV (03:03):
No, honestly, what it was is I know so much of our audience or is going through this phase of their business or their life where there’s this concept of reinvention and it’s for so many of our clients who have been very business minded. So they’d been entrepreneurs or in corporate or in sales, and now they’re going, but there’s something else out there for me that I feel called to do. And a part of that has this personal brand. And I just, we hear all the time that people are going through this. Like this is, you know, the next phase of my life or I’m in, you know, this is my life version 2.0. And, and so I follow you on social and clearly I know you a bit, it’s you have gone through like this massive reinvention and I love what you’re doing and all the things you’re talking about and all of your posts. And so one day I reached out and I was like, Hey, do you think that you would want to come on our show? Because I just feel like this, this whole conversation around re-invention affects every single piece, every single person that we work with. And so it’s going to be applicable to everyone.
PW (04:07):
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I think you’re right. I think there’s a lot of people going through reinvention and for a host of reasons, right? I mean, sometimes you have to go through a reinvention because it’s forced upon you either you made some serious mistakes or you work for someone who thinks you made some serious mistakes, or you just find your line of work to reach the people you really want to reach, you got to do something completely different. And so there’s a host of reasons, but you know, the, the process of reinvention for everyone is pretty similar. And I think there’s some things that you can do to help prepare yourself to do that in a successful kind of way.
AJV (04:46):
I love it. I’m so excited to get, to hear all about it too. You know, I
RV (04:50):
Think all the way back, you know, plan B probably feels like years and years. I mean, it was years and years ago, but it probably feels like a lifetime ago for you, but you know, that whole book and, and story about just like, what happens when the thing you thought was going to happen, doesn’t happen. How do you think that applies to this in terms of like, what’s the right mindset that you think you go in, you, you should go into a re-invention with, or that just that you, that you’ve gone through. I mean, you’ve gone from being this very well known senior pastor in this space and then, you know, have moved to a whole different space in some, in some ways what’s the mindset there, you know, and just to start with,
PW (05:42):
Yeah, it’s, it’s very humbling to write a best-selling book about, you know, what do you do in life? Doesn’t turn out the way you thought it was going to turn out when I wrote that book. And at that point in my life, to be honest with you, everything had turned out the way I wanted it to out. Like, if you go back and read that book, it’s full of everybody else’s stories. Cause I had to pull from all the people around me whose life hadn’t turned out the way they thought. And then years later, you know, I live out my own plan B and my own life feels like it kind of imploded in some ways. And I’m like, wow, I really need to rewrite that book now because there’s some things I would say much different having lived through it personally. But I think there can be, you know, you, you look at these opportunities that you have in life reinvention.
PW (06:28):
Like I said, sometimes they’re kind of forced on you. And then in, in my case to some degree, it’s not a path I would have chosen, but I had the opportunity to either go one direction, which is just to be bitter the rest of my life, to wallow in mistakes that I’d made to say, you know what, I’ve, I’ve made the biggest, greatest impact I’m ever gonna make. It’s never going to be that good again. I’ll never have that kind of audience again. And to be honest with you, I had that season, I needed that season. I needed to hold on to that pain long enough until I’ve learned all the lessons that I needed to learn. But there came that day of saying, all right, enough’s enough. I’ve learned what I’ve needed to learn from that pain. And now it’s time to build back.
PW (07:15):
Now it’s time to reinvent. And the beauty, the gift I’d been given was a blank slate. And so all the patterns of overworking the patterns of being a people pleaser and finding my identity through the validation of others. I had an opportunity to build everything back, but do it in a healthier way. And I just got to answer the question that some people never get to really ask themselves, which is what do I really want to do with my life now? And I started building from that, that, that, that point forward. But one of the first things I always say to people is, number one, I’d say commit to the process like reinvention as you guys know is not easy. And it is a process. Sometimes it’s a painful process, but you’re not going to go to bed, a successful CEO and necessarily wake up a New York times bestselling author, right? There’s a process there. There’s going to be some work there and you got to embrace that process. Have you guys seen that to be true?
AJV (08:20):
That’s an understatement statement. No. And I think one of the things that we see a lot, even in our own lives and our own business, because I think one of the reasons I so wanted to have this conversation, our podcast is brand builders group is the product of reinvention, right? This was not our life as a full-time business five years ago. Right? In fact, brain builders group, we’ll celebrate three years in business officially next month, next month. And so this, I think for, even for us, it’s like, it was a very, again, not a process we would have chosen probably wasn’t planned, wasn’t chosen, but oh my gosh, the fruitfulness and the blessings that have poured out because we got that second opportunity to reinvent. I’ve been so incredible, but there’s something that you said earlier that I really resonate with. And I know a ton of people in our audience with is that process of, well, how do you go from, well, F this isn’t what I planned.
AJV (09:24):
Cause I felt like a lot of people are in that. Okay. You know, the last, roughly 18 months of rocked, my world turned my business upside down. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to the business I had. So what’s next. How do you go from that O F moment to no, actually this, this is, this is a blessing and this is an opportunity to reshape and reshift, even though it’s going to be hard work, but I’m getting a second chance to do life and a whole new way. How, how do you do that?
PW (09:54):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great question. And you know, I think for me, I’ll tell you a big part of the process for me was changing my mind shift towards gratitude because there’s a season that I wanted to focus on everything I had lost. Right. And honestly, that, that, that kinda came from the spirit of my life of entitlement. Like I was owed that I, you know, I did this, I did that, our target, you know, I really felt like I had earned all of that. It was all owed to me. I had to shift my mindset to one of gratitude. It’s become one of the most important practices in my life to just in that gratitude journal, every morning list of things that I’m just grateful for. And the more I started to see all of life as a gift, as I started to see even my, my skills, my abilities, those were gifts that were giving them, given to me.
PW (10:49):
It wasn’t owed to me when I started to see everything through that, that, that perspective. It really allowed me to stop looking at things as if they were obstacles and start looking at them as if they were opportunities. And I started to that whole mind shift of, oh my gosh, all these obstacles that I’m looking at, they’re not blocking the path. They are the path, right. This is the way I need to walk down this road because all of this is forming and shaping me, not only what I’m going to do next, but it’s forming and shaping who I am as a human being. But I took a while to get there again, that wasn’t an overnight thing.
AJV (11:28):
No, but that’s so good. It’s these things aren’t blocking their path. They are the path that’s really, really well. And
RV (11:37):
You talk about entitlement. And I think that it’s really weird because when you have been successful at something, I mean the word re-invention, yo basically, no matter how you slice it as starting over, and that is it’s, it’s a painful part about going well, I already, I already fought this battle. Once I already did this war, like I already ran this race. I shouldn’t have to do it again. And that is so frustrating. It can be frustrating and maddening. How do you get yourself past that? Because you’re like, you know, one day, as you said, you’re a CEO or you’re you have this big business you’ve started, you’ve got this huge team of people until just like crank stuff out. And then the next day you’re gone, it’s all gone. And here I have this beautiful blank slate, but it’s also like, do I really have to do this again?
PW (12:43):
Yeah. That’s why I say, I’d say the second step is you’ve got to embrace humility. It takes a tremendous amount of humility because you’re right. When you’ve had tremendous amount of success and a particular season of your life, or in a particular industry, right. That you’ve been working in. And then all of a sudden you find yourself having to either leave that industry and start something completely new, or maybe you’re, maybe you’re staying in the same job, but to really get the results you want. Now you’re having to learn a completely new skill. Right. it’s humbling. You know, we were joking around a little bit before this podcast started, as we were both fumbling around with some it issues that, you know, there was a time in my life that I had a video team of four or five full-time people. I had an it department of three or four people, you know, I really got to just show up and do the part I love the most and walk away.
PW (13:37):
And somebody made magic out of that and made me look good. You know, these days you know, I am the video team. My wife is the it department. Right. And you know, we’re, and she’s only in the it department cause she knows a little bit more than I do. And when stuff doesn’t work, I tend to throw it. It gets expensive, replacing stuff. So you know, it’s humbling, right? And again, you could look at that in one or two ways. And, and to be honest are times I’ll look at it and I’m so frustrated because I can’t get this cord to work or this program, the work, or I can’t figure out how to do lights. And then there are other times I sit back and say, you know what, though, like again, part of this process is it’s, it’s leading towards what you wanted and you started with a blank slate.
PW (14:24):
One of the things that was of value for me was flexibility. There was a time in my life that I worked 80 hours a week. And in that process, I wasn’t focusing on some of the things that were most important to me in life, such as family. And so, and part of that was, you know, I, I had a staff from over a hundred people that I was trying to manage and lead. And so again, my ultimate goal, these days of wanting some more flexibility means I don’t have a staff of a hundred people that I’m leading day in and day out. It also means I don’t have three separate offices anymore. I have a two foot wide desk in my laundry room. Right. So there’s, yeah, there’s, there’s humility that comes with it, but I have to keep that long range goal.
PW (15:11):
And there’s some, also some values kind of started with that blank slate. And I said, what is it that I ultimately want? And for me, flexibility was one of those things. So, but yes, the humility it’s huge. In fact, you said something recently on your podcast. I wrote it down. I have it here on my desk because you were talking about Jim Cohen, who you had had on there and you guys had helped her. And so she had had tremendous success right. In one area, but now she’s wanting to do this TEDx talk and she comes to you guys to help her organize that and create, you know the possibility but viral Ted talk. And you guys did that for her, but that only happened because she was willing to be humble. Right. And to kind of go through that process. So you said this, what you said, be humble enough to learn a process and follow the process.
PW (16:03):
And so that’s been in the back of my head ever since I heard you say that is, you know, you again, just because you had success before, doesn’t mean that’s going to be ODU again. And so you gotta to read, if you need to hire a coach, hire a coach needed, send a online webinar, attend the webinar, you know, but become a sponge, commit to that process, get rid of the pride that makes you want to think that you’re too good to start over and you’ll automatically greatly increase your chances to be successful at your re-invention. Whatever that reinvention might be.
AJV (16:37):
This is so good. Cause I know you’re going to talk about something in a second, so I won’t give it away, but I think this is a really nice transition into that because we hear a ton of people come to us going, well, I should just be here by now. I should just have been making this much money by now. I should have gotten this by now. And I’m like, why, why and what is buying now? And I think a lot of it is what you said is like you get entitled to this previous idea of success or your role without going, Nope, I’m actually going to clean the slate and I’ve got to humble myself and realize I may not get there in the timeline that I want, but that doesn’t mean I won’t get there. But also I think what you said, I think is so powerful it’s to redefine, like, what is it that you want?
AJV (17:25):
Like, do you want to just go back to what you did to do it in a different industry or a different avenue? Or do you really take the time to sit back and go? No. What, what is this opportunity to reinvent really mean in my life? And I just don’t know if a lot of people sit back and take that time. They kind of go from, you know, to use your example. I was working 80 hours a week as a corporate CEO, a CEO. Now I’m going to work 80 hours a week to be a New York times bestselling author. I’m going, but is that what you really want or is that just a conditioned part of your life that you’ve gotten used to?
PW (17:57):
Yeah, yeah, you’re exactly right. That’s it leads right into that third thing, which is, I think you have to redefine your success and the temptation is to take whatever metric you were using before and just apply that right. To whatever it is that you’re going through to, you know, in the midst of this reinvention. And it just rarely works that way, especially if you’re going to pivot industries like I did. So I went from being a full-time pasture speaker for over 20 years. That’s all I had really ever done in my adult life. And now all of a sudden I’m doing something a little different, right? And so these days, you know, I have the podcast, a good talk podcast, you know, we have this good Bob’s manner management that we’ve started, where we’re partnering, you know, celebrities and entertainers with nonprofits and corporations. And then I have my personal coaching, all three of those things were quite different in many ways. And what I was doing before I pivoted along with that, you know, the, the reality was I had an audience that I had gained over 20 years of working in ministry. And some of that audience translated over to what I do now, but many of them did. And so it was, you know, I had to redefine success because, you know, I started with maybe 30,000 Instagram followers and every time I’d post about the new things I was doing, you know, I’d lose a thousand and gain 50. And
RV (19:25):
I find that to be a motivating experience when I post something in my followers, not only do not grow, but when it goes in reverse, that really drives me to continue in the perseverance passion.
PW (19:40):
Oh yeah. Yeah. I had some choice words for Instagram. I get it. You know, it’s like what they had originally signed up for. It had changed. It was different. The content was different. I had a little different angle. I had a different feel to it. And so I had to redefine what is success? Then success is gaining those 50. And I had to focus on that because those are 50 now who are signing up for what it is I’m doing. And I had to be okay with losing that a thousand at that time, you know, it’s the same thing. It’s like, I used to get paid pretty good money to stand in our arena full of, you know, 20,000 people and talk for 30 minutes. Well now, like I love the opportunity for free to stand in a room full of a handful of executives and talk to them about how I can help them go to the next level level and their business and their life and to redefine what success looked like and all those different offerings that I was able to provide.
RV (20:41):
I love that about the metrics. I mean, that is so true. Cause it’s, it’s funny, like, you know, you’ve heard that you were saying this before you hear that, don’t compare your step one to someone else, step 100. But when we reinvent in our own lives, we do it to ourselves against ourselves where it’s like, I’m comparing my new step one to my former step 100 and carrying the metrics over, man. It just creates pressure and like anxiety. And it brings a whole bunch of negative habits
AJV (21:11):
With it. Yeah. I think one of the things you said, I was like that I think out of everything, it’s like, that’s where you have to humble yourself the most, even comparing yourself to yourself because it’s not going to be the same in the beginning, nor should it be, nor should it be.
PW (21:28):
If you can get that early on, it really sets you up because you guys know this you’ve had seasons in your life where you got the awards, you know, you had the New York times and
RV (21:39):
AIG got the awards. She got so many awards. You had a box full of awards from our former life. But the only one she kept, this is funny. This is anecdote. Most of you don’t know. AIJ literally was the top producer, top leader, top revenue, earner, top everything. And, and when, when we started brambles group, we left, right. We had re-invention she left all those awards except for one which was corn hole tournament.
AJV (22:17):
Yeah. I still have it in my office. And it’s like in the shape of a little corn and every time somebody comes in, I’m like, I want that that’s right.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
I want to love,
PW (22:28):
I’m not surprised by all the other awards, but that one, that kind of surprised. I know you would not
AJV (22:34):
Think I’m so talented in the skills.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Let me just I’ll leave it at that.
AJV (22:40):
But that’s like, I think that’s so important is redefining success because when we, you know, departed from our former company and former partnership, you know, I really struggled when we started brand builders group and settling into my new role because I settled in as the role of CEO and wasn’t so client facing anymore and I wasn’t getting all of the accolades, right. So I was very, very client facing before and got a lot of praise and a lot of you’re so awesome. This was amazing. And now I get, is this sucks.
RV (23:15):
I use for problems. It was a very humbling
AJV (23:20):
Experience that I appreciate, but it was really challenging to go no longer am I the one who people want to see or want to work with or nor do I even get really paid for it. And it was a very challenging first 18 months of me settling in that my worth does not come with the amount of revenue that I produced. And it was a real challenge. And it wasn’t really until I had our second child, which was in the midst of our startup with this, but I said, I didn’t want the life I had before. So why do I miss it now? And it was a very poignant moment that I remember when Liam are now almost two year old was just an infant of X. I remember at that first with Jasper, I only took a three week maternity because I was so afraid that if I wasn’t working that I wouldn’t be significant.
AJV (24:11):
And with Liam, I took a three month maternity leave. And I just remember sitting in that moment, I’m like, why do I miss a life that I didn’t even want? Yeah. And it was so tied to this. I really had to really look at my pride and my ego of, I cared way too much about the way I looked and the way I seemed, I cared more about that than my own happiness. Yeah. And it was a very humbling experience to settle in and go, I’m going to have to really redefine what success looks like in order for me to step into this new role in our new company and, and actually seek happiness. Yeah. And it was, it was that right there, it was redefined success. And that it was, it wasn’t until that moment that I really was like, okay, I don’t have to be the one to have my name everywhere or be the one on stage or get the huge contracts. Like that’s no longer success to me, but being able to take my kids to school that I, you know, just like those little things, it was, it was a very humbling, important process that was redefining success. So I just, I know when not you sent this outline over, I was like, we’re going to have to talk about that because I know so many people who listen to this podcast, they’re dis their success is being defined, but what’s happening around them, not what they actually want.
PW (25:40):
Yeah. That’s so true. And you know, for me, one of the things was, you know, you ma in ministry, you’ve measured things. And the number of people in almost every category is kind of one of the things that gets measured. And so when you’re speaking in front of large groups, as you guys know, it feels good. It’s momentum somewhere along the way, though, for me, I had bought into a lie and the lie I bought into was because I’m so good with large groups of people. It means I’m not good one-on-one. And I repeated that for years. I repeated that to people, people would compliment me on a wow. I mean, you can stand on that stage. And just, and I had always say, well, thank you. I appreciate that. But I’m, you know, I can’t do what you do. Like I’m not good, like one-on-one with people or with small groups of people.
PW (26:26):
What I discovered that wasn’t true at all now what it required the one-on-one, that’s why I love coaching these days, but it, it requires a level of connection with people that I didn’t have to have with 20,000 people. And so it’s that I wasn’t good with people one-on-one it was, I wasn’t prepared to have that level of emotional connection with them that are required to go there. And so that’s really helped me again and just redefining what that success looks like. And success for me these days is loving what it is that I do, which ultimately is so much more important than any kind of accolade. You could get any kind of awards you can get. Cause those things, again, they, they feel great for about a day. And then it’s, if you don’t love what you do, you’re going to be miserable because all those awards, all that stuff, except for the corn hole, they’re going to end up in a box somewhere. Right.
AJV (27:28):
But it’s true. And I land, I love that. And I think too, it’s like so much for our audience. And this is a shout out to everyone to remember. It’s like, you are not defined by your followers and the number of likes that you get, or it’s like, it is not about that. And we had a guest on the show several months back, he’s also a personal friend, John Ruhlin. And I love what John Ruhlin said. And you, something you just said made me think about it is like, you do not have to have millions of followers to make impacts impact in millions of lives or even to make millions of dollars. And so often in the world of personal branding, we look at our followers and go, oh, the, you know, if you have a lot of followers, that means you’re successful. And it’s like, no, you can have 10 followers and be incredibly successful. It’s just, what, what is that success for you? I love that. I think that’s so important
RV (28:17):
When one of the things, when we were kind of talking about reinvention and, and, and how we might frame the conversation, you know, so much of this is like humbling yourself, re you know, changing, redefining success sort of like letting go of the past. But there’s also a little bit of a nuance to this that you thought that you brought up that I thought was really fascinating, which is that there’s actually, some of it does come with you. That is healthy. Can you talk about that?
PW (28:48):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, I think, I think the reality is you’re never actually completely starting over, you know, the reality is whatever work it is that you’ve been doing, like, wow, you know, you’ve got, you know, for me to 20 years in ministry, it didn’t like just completely disappear. You know, I spent 20 years working on this skill of speaking and communicating, right. I had 20 years worth of relationships that I had built. All those didn’t disappear the day that I started to kind of reinvent and kind of shift or pivot. And so for me, I had to look back and say, okay, you, you have a certain set of skills. Cause I started with this. I started with the mentality of all you’ve ever done in your life is be a pastor, which is true. I mean, it was true. That’s all I had ever done as far as an actual title.
PW (29:41):
But the reality is I had 20 years of skills that I could dig back into 20 years worth of relationships. I could go back into. That would be helpful. So I’ll give you a great example of this. And it’s one I think you guys will identify with when I started decided to launch good vibes management, and I just had this idea because as a pastor, over the years, our church being in Nashville and being a large church, we had over the years, many celebrities who had kind of come through with huge hearts, we definitely
RV (30:11):
Relate with this. We know lots of celebrities. I mean, we can keep on parts. They’re always trying to come over and call us and bug us. I mean, I mean, we definitely relate to you
Speaker 4 (30:20):
On this, but they had great hearts. They wanted to do good
PW (30:25):
Things, but often they’re so busy. They didn’t even know where to start. Right. And so sometimes as a church, we we’d help them. Hey, here’s three or four amazing things going on in our community that you could be a huge help to not only with your resources, but with your platform. And so I just had this idea of what if we launched good Bob’s management and we do this with artists and athletes. We part, we paired them with nonprofits and really add purpose right. To their platform. But I knew like let’s take music business. For instance, I don’t know anything about music business. I knew that managers of these artists would be kind of the gatekeepers. So I literally got on my Instagram feed and I started going through my followers, looking for followers who had something to do with music management. And I saw this girl, her name’s Nikki Boone.
PW (31:13):
I’m like it said a music management. So I clicked on her profile. She happened to be like the day-to-day manager for a guy by then McCain brown, who was this really up and coming country music artists who had had some crossover hits. I literally just like reached out to her and said, Nikki, I don’t need you follow me, but I don’t even know if you know who I am, but I would love to pick your brain. And we sat down and she told me everything there was to know about music management. I told her about my idea. She was like, I think that’s a great idea. In fact, I think like you could really help me with some stuff with Kane, six months later, I’m putting a deal together between the world’s largest nonprofit and one of the world’s largest blowing up country music artists.
PW (32:01):
And they were doing incredible work together and lives were getting transformed. And it was all because I thought for just a minute may be there’s some people in relationships from my past that could help me with my future. And so I know that in the process of your reinvention, whatever it is, there’s some people you’ve worked with. There’s some relationships that are formed. There’s some skills that you used and you honed that can come over and you can use those in whatever new endeavor you have going on. And I said that you guys would be able to identify that because I recently saw you with Lewis house. And I tell story on Instagram, about how, when you guys went through your reinvention, he was one of the first people that you guys kind of reached out to, and he was incredibly generous and really helped you guys out. And I just think there’s more people like that out there in the world than we realize who want to help us. If we’re willing to ask
AJV (32:56):
And to, to what you said, it’s you already possessed this unique skillset from your past. You were just doing it in a different way. It’s like people were coming to the church of going, Hey, how can I help? And you’re going well, what if I went to them instead and said, Hey, let me part you. Or it’s like, I think that’s too, it’s really a powerful to remind everyone. It’s like so much of what your future holds. You’ve already developed those skills and your past. You just need to learn how to apply them in new and different ways towards your future goals. And we definitely relate to that in so many different ways in our business, but then also the, the people too. It’s like, just because you’re, re-inventing doesn’t mean that people of your past the, you know, the things that you did, clients even don’t they, they come with you. Yeah. Some do some don’t. I mean, to
RV (33:41):
The way that you said, you know, one of the things that you just said P which was a light bulb for me, I guess this is kind of a random anecdote, but w we have a good friend, a guy named Ron marks and, and he used this metaphor one time. It has stuck with me my whole life. And when you were talking, it’s sunk in with me that, wow, we have a little bit of this in common with you, between what we used to do and what we’re doing now and what you used to do and what you’re doing now. And Ron here’s here was the illustration. He said, you know, one of the great things about becoming a leader is you go from being in the spotlight to becoming the spotlight operator. And that I think is something that we both have in common, which is where we used to be more in the spotlight.
RV (34:26):
And now both you and us, we are more the spotlight operator. We’re trying to like facilitate other people who have, you know, to grow their platforms and to do meaningful things with them. And you know, what an amazing what an amazing and beautiful unexpected part of the way that God’s plan works and rolls out that the pain we’re going through, isn’t about the pain at all. It’s about him preparing us for the work that he always originally designed us to do. And I, I can’t let you get out of here without asking you I know you’re not officially a pastor anymore, but like, how has your relationship with God? Like, how has that affected or the plate into reinvention and, and how much do you think that that shows up or, you know, matters or has changed, or just like, yeah. Talk to us a little bit about that specifically, you know, going from a, to, you know, what you’re doing now
Speaker 4 (35:39):
I’m just, I’m fascinated about that.
PW (35:41):
That’s great. And, and your illustration, what you just said is huge that idea of being in the spotlight and now facilitating people who are in the spotlight and what that moment does for you is it helps you understand, okay, what is it that I really love that I love being in the spotlight spotlight, or did I love the impact that was being made? And if you love the impact more than you love the spotlight, then you’re going to be just fine and sliding into that new role of allowing other people. One of the things for me to just continue on with that illustration is I’m stepping out of the spotlight for a season, really helped me kind of redefine my relationship with God. You know, I I’ve found it in this all pastors wouldn’t feel this way, but I kind of felt this way.
PW (36:29):
There’s kind of this line this, this feeling of working for God, right? Instead of kind of working with God. And I think for me, I got up, I got caught up in a season where I just started, I was working for God, which also meant, I felt like I was working for God’s love. And one of the beautiful things that I’ve discovered over the past five years is, is truly God’s unconditional love. And for me, what that means and what that represents might look a little different than what it means and represents for some other people, but for a big part of my ministry, the driving force behind it, and you guys were a part of the church long enough to know this. I used to say all the time, it’s okay to not be okay. I used to talk about this idea that there’s no perfect people.
PW (37:19):
You know, everyone’s welcome because nobody’s perfect was kind of that tagline. And I remember when I was going through my reinvention part of it for me was some therapy. Right. And I remember my therapist asking me about kind of my life message and me saying, yeah, part of my life message is I believe everyone’s welcome because nobody’s perfect. And he said, you believe that for everybody else, but for yourself. And that was a turning point for me. He was right. I didn’t believe that for myself. I believed in God’s unconditional love for everybody, but for me, I thought I still had to earn that. Right. And so he said on the other side of all this, I believe you’re probably going to still have the same kind of life mission he said, but it’s going to sound a little different this time, because this time you’re going to believe that for yourself. And I do. And I feel like it’s the same message I’ve always had. It’s coming out in different ways to personal coaching and through good vibes management and through a podcast. Now with my wife life looks a lot different than it did 5, 6, 7 years ago. But it’s still the same message. And it sounds a little different because I’m embracing it for myself for the first time. And that’s been a beautiful thing.
PW (38:35):
Wow. I love that, buddy.
RV (38:37):
We love you. We’re so grateful for you.
AJV (38:40):
I’ve heard the record. We will always consider you one of our pastors. Thank you. Thank
PW (38:46):
God. I still get to do some ministry. I work for a church up in Detroit, outside of Detroit, actually in Plymouth that I get to speak at quite a bit and love serving there. So it’s still, it’s still a part of my life which is awesome. And that’s another thing about reinvention is sometimes you don’t have to walk away from all of it, or maybe you walk away from it for a season and somehow it kind of comes back around. But yeah, it’s a, it’s a beautiful thing. And that means the world. You guys, I mean, the world, this podcast, what you guys do is huge and you give really practical tools. I listened to it every week. It’s been so helpful to me, to Jordan. And I hope you guys will just keep doing what you’re doing cause you are, you’re making a big difference. Well, thank
RV (39:28):
You, Pete. And, and the you know, one of the other hallmarks I’ve always heard of a great leadership is that, you know, that the great leaderships will build something that eventually outlasts them. And you know, we still go to cross point where you know, I, we’re still involved with the leaders.

Ep 179: Accessing Your Creativity with Todd Henry | Recap Episode

RV: (00:06)

Welcome back to the influential personal brand podcast recap. It’s your man, Rory Vaden breaking down the interview with my time friend, Todd Henry. I’m all about accessing your creativity, which I think is just super relevant. Right. And, and I guess it’s funny, cause I’ve known about Todd’s work for years, but now more than any other time, I think in my career, how do I feel like we’re playing in this space of creativity on a regular basis? And, and I would say even feeling like creativity is a core component of succeeding in the workplace today. And I would say probably my first biggest takeaway from the interview with Todd was even just kind of reframing what is creativity and what, what should we think about and what does he think about, or as someone who’s spent spent a lifetime studying this which is that creativity is just problem solving.

RV: (01:09)

That’s it? Creativity is problem solving and there’s constant problems. I mean, this is the story of being an entrepreneur. It’s the story of being a leader? It’s the story of being a parent? It’s the story of building a personal brand or building an empire it’s like life is basically just a series of one problem after the next, after the next, after the next and the problems just get bigger and different and more complex, the more successful you get and a lot of the most fundamental problems, you never, you never resolve completely, right? Like what are we eating for dinner and how do we keep the house clean? And you know, what are we wearing? And like, there’s just this, this rhythm of life that is a steady stream of problems. And so if you don’t have creativity or if you’re not developing that, then I think you’re going to really struggle.

RV: (01:59)

And I’m realizing that, oh my gosh, this is, this is an essential skill that isn’t just relevant to artists, but relevant to all of us. And you know, so I think this first takeaway there’s two big definitions that are in this. So one is what is the definition of creativity? I think Todd defines it as problem solving, which will, will stick with me. The other was what’s the definition of art. And I think the way that Todd said it was, he said that art is an expression of values, right? So it is your values, the things that you care most about the things that you believe in the things that you buy into, the ideals that you hold, the, the principles that you know, to be true, it is those things codified, manifested, extrapolated transformed into some expression, whether it’s, you know, a painting, a song a movie a, a book, a speech, a course like a business.

RV: (03:20)

I mean, I think business is art. Like creating a business is, is nothing other than expression of values. I think it’s like, I love that definition because if you go, okay, well, core values are to a business. What personal philosophies are to an artist. So your personal viewpoints and philosophies come out as the expression of art. Well, if you’re an entrepreneur, your business basically is that, I mean, it is that, that an entrepreneur being an entrepreneur is our chance to create a reflection in the world of the things that we believe, the things that we hold value to the things that we, we most trust and we believe to be true and that we want to see more of in the world. And so I think that is a really fascinating way of seeing it is that art is this expression of values, businesses and expression of values.

RV: (04:16)

You know, and, and I think when you, you know, that it’s art, when it moves people emotionally, we talk about that in world-class presentation craft which is, you know, our course, our, our course on teaching people how to speak from stage and the mastery level, stage mechanics of what, what set mechanically, what separates the greatest speakers in the world from everyone else. And it is all about, can you move the audience emotionally? Do they have some type of visceral response in their body to the things that you are saying? And you know, some of those are techniques, but that you can do, you know, there’s, there’s things that you can practice and we teach a lot of those, but a lot of it is more of it is aligning your art, your presentation, your, your masterpiece, your creation, being in alignment with your uniqueness, the things that you believe.

RV: (05:11)

So that was really beautiful. And I, I really loved that. And, and I loved the practical application of that also with kind of like this artistic juxtaposition was, was really good. Now, the second big takeaway that I want to highlight is w w w how do you find, like what art you should create? I mean, a brand builders group, right? We would call this finding your uniqueness. It is always the first thing that we do with every client as we help them identify their uniqueness. It’s the thing that so many people struggle with. It’s, it’s almost a thing where it’s like, it’s, it’s kind of impossible to like, figure it out yourself. You need help doing it. It’s really, really difficult to nail this, but if you nail this, I mean, it changes everything. It changes everything because you’re being the person that only you can be.

RV: (05:57)

And I love what Todd said here, which is another way, or I would say a hint or a clue or a suggestion. You could say, I guess a shortcut, probably not a shortcut, but, but maybe corroborating evidence for you to find your uniqueness. Here’s what he said. This is my second takeaway. The thing that you’re most equipped to put into the world is the thing that feels most obvious to you. The thing that you’re most equipped to put into the world is the thing that feels most obvious to you. It’s, it’s parallels kind of what we say a lot, which is that your most powerfully positioned to serve the person that you once were. And that’s because, you know, in full integrated detail, what it’s like to be that person. So it is obvious. Yes. Do you, because that’s what you have done.

RV: (06:52)

It’s what you have lived and not just what you have learned about. And I think the way that he comes at it here in, in the way he says it is, is kind of like you know, a different presentation of the same core concept, which is what’s most to you. What is the thing that you do without, you know, trying, what is the thing that you do naturally? What is the thing that you’re gifted at? What is the, what are you like? What have you become? What super powers do you have you naturally developed over the course of your life. These things that you don’t think are special, there’s a huge need out in the world because other people have not gone through what you’ve gone through. They haven’t walked the path that you have walked down. And so you’re super equipped to help those people, which is amazing.

RV: (07:37)

It’s amazing when you tap into this, because this is a gift like this is, this is such a great blessing that your personal brand is built, not on having to create something out of scratch, not on, not on having to manufacture ideas out of thin air, but rather to express things you already are to, to convey things that you’ve already been doing to, to translate the very persona in history and experience that you have lived, the more that we can access that the faster and the shorter, the distance to you breaking through with your personal brand. And it’s in a lot of times, it is the thing that’s, it’s so obvious to you that you don’t even notice it. I would say that a lot, like a lot of our clients, like it’s it’s, so it’s such an ingrained part of them. Like their uniqueness is such an ingrained part of them that they can’t see it.

RV: (08:39)

Cause they’re so close to it that they’re, it’s almost like they questioned like, well, why would this have any value in the world? Like surely no one would care about that. They have the curse of knowledge, right? They, they automatically, we assume and believe that everyone else out there in the world knows the same things that they know. And they don’t because they haven’t studied. They haven’t researched to use the, the brain DNA helix term. They haven’t researched the same things that you have researched. They don’t have results doing the same things that you’re doing. They don’t have the same passions. They haven’t tried to solve the same problem. And and so it’s like, it’s hard to see. So that’s really, really important. And even though it’s hard to see, it’s a place to start with is, you know, what is most obvious to you?

RV: (09:22)

Like, what is the problem you have most overcome? What is the path that you have walked down? Or as Todd said, it you’re most equipped to put into the world. The thing that feels most obvious to you, which by way of the curse of knowledge, you probably think has no value in the world because you assume that everybody knows it just because you do. And they do not. My third takeaway. And I would say this one was my, my favorite part of that entire conversation is the difference of pursuing a craft Haft versus pursuing stardom. This is the difference between pursuing a craft versus personal, doing the stardom. And it actually reminds me you know, so one of our, one of our longtime pals is John ACOF and we saw John at church a few weeks ago, and we were just having this conversation.

RV: (10:16)

We hadn’t seen each other in a while. And, you know, he said something, something about how far we’ve come over all these years. And, you know, I told him, I said, yeah, honestly, I think it, it has more to do with the fact that you and I have just stuck around than anything else. Like we have weathered so many storms. Like we’ve just been, we’ve been in this space now for 15 years. I mean, I met John AIG and I met John 12 years ago now. And so it’s, it’s like, we’ve known him for 12. He was already, you know, just like us. He had been around in awhile and it’s like, I think what we’ve both been doing is, is like we’re pursuing a craft, right? We want to get really good at what we do, which is we want to get really good at helping people.

RV: (11:01)

We want to get really good at providing solutions, really good at providing answers. And when you do that, you have true staying power. I mean, it’s, it’s so powerful because you’re not constantly tied to the results of your last post, right? Like you’re not constantly consumed with how many video views did I get, how many podcast downloads or even your last book. Right. It’s it’s like, yeah. If the book sells or not, I mean, it’s, it’s one part of this lifelong journey that is the, your craft. But you’ll see a lot of times when people are like, oh, I just, you know, like, I feel like I need to just like, do this one, one thing. Or if they’re just pursuing stardom, like they just want to have a lot of followers, like you’re going to burn out, you’re going to burn out, or you’re going to look for shortcuts, or you’re just, you’re going to make a lot of sacrifices because you’re ultimately serving something that isn’t that significant in terms of its, its staying power.

RV: (11:58)

And it’s, it’s, it’s lasting power. And it’s trick, it’s a little bit of a trick because look at like at brand builders group, right, we win when our clients win. Like we love when our clients get hundreds of thousands of followers or millions of Ted talk views, are they, you know, hit the New York times bestseller list or they land, you know, six figure consulting, deals, all, all things that happen, you know? And, and recently they’ve been on a pretty regular basis. But even those things, it’s like, we want those things to happen for our clients, but they’re not what we measure success by because it’s like, first of all, certain parts of those things can kind of be like manufactured, right. And the, the, the reality is going, but, but it’s not these external achievements or these vanity metrics that change anyone else’s life, nor do they provide side the kind of meaning and deep satisfaction that a true mission driven a true mission driven messenger seeks in their own life.

RV: (13:03)

They’re certainly not bad. They’re great things. We want them to happen. It’s just not how we measure success at brand builders group. Because, you know, we focus on, on reputation, over revenue. We want revenue, we want wins. We want money. We want likes, we want followers. We want views. We want all that stuff. But at the end of the day, we’re more focused on helping people figure out what are you called to do, do that. Nobody else can do. Like what problem were you put here on this earth to solve, solve that nobody else can solve. And, you know, focusing and, and standing your identity, grounding your identity more in that is much more significant and long lasting. And it’s going to be a greater source of fulfillment and satisfaction. Even if for some reason it wasn’t going to bring more money. And over the long term, we are convinced that it absolutely does.

RV: (14:04)

But there are certain things that do create more results. Short-Term I mean, there are certain topics and there’s certain things you can do. Like, I mean, anything sexual, anything outrageous anything to do with money like there are certain topics that just naturally draw more attention, anything that’s based on celebrities, there’s things that you can do to kind of manufacture short-term attention. But if that’s, if, if that topic or that thing, isn’t what you want to spend your life doing. It’s like you can’t chase that because you’ll, you’ll eventually be running from an empty tank. So pursue mastery of craft laughs don’t pursue stardom, pursue figuring out how can I help versus how can I known? And if you do that, you likely will grow your influence and you will have all of these amazing things happen to you. And that really, really was powerful to hear Todd talk about that.

RV: (15:07)

Especially since he’s spent a life around. So many creatives is, is, is to just really pursue that, that craft. And don’t get caught up, resist the temptation to be caught up in the fame and the vanity metrics and the stardom and you know, whatever word you want to call it. Cause it’s not ultimately what changes lives and it’s not, what’s going to bring you satisfaction, but find what’s the message you could spend your life sharing. What’s the problem you could dedicate your life to solving who is the audience and you can dedicate your life to survey