Category: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

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 181: How Personal Brands Can Create an Unbeatable Mind with Mark Divine | Recap Episode

RV (00:07):
Welcome to this Navy seal recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Whoa. Talking about how personal brands can create an unbeatable mind with long time Navy seal commander, mark divine. I mean this guy. Oh, holy moly. Like hoof. I mean, I don’t know what to say like this, th th th this interview, it blew my mind and I’ve interviewed mark before. We’ve, we’ve known each other for years and every time I interface with him, I am just amazed at like, I mean, the thing that jumps out to me is just like the concept of mental toughness of literally just preparing your mind for battle. I mean, but not just, you know, not just battle in terms of war, which of course he’s got a lot of experience with, but, but, but more than that leadership and, and problem solving and challenges and vision, and just like, you know, there’s so many things that, that you can learn you, you know, like there’s knowledge that you can learn.
RV (01:17):
But when I think of mark Devine, my, my brain goes, my brain goes to basically going, how do you prepare your brain as a tool as your, as your most important tool and your number one asset in everything that you do. And, you know, I just, I love the brand unbeatable mind. I love him. I mean, obviously he’s extraordinary pedigree and you know, just track record and, you know, does it get much more of a practitioner than what he’s doing? And so I love this and if you haven’t listened to the interview, you need to go listen to it because this is, this is it’s about strengths. It’s, it’s about having a strong mind. It’s about being able to overcome your circumstances. And how do you, how do you, how do you rise above the, the negative thing that’s happened, the negative things that happened to you, and how do you overcome and get around the difficulties that are every part of life and, you know, learning the tactics that mark talks about are super practical and just powerful, right?
RV (02:23):
Just because of the intensity of the situations that, that he’s been in. And, and if you haven’t listened to the interview yet, or even if you have one of the things that’s amazing to me is, you know, you hear Navy seal, like the mind kind of goes to like war hero, but mark has this, this really elegant, beautiful balance of, of, you know, like Eastern meditation and, and you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a higher level than just, you know, I am strong and I’m going to destroy, like, it’s not that at all. In fact, so let’s just run through, I’ll run through the, my top three takeaways here for personal brands. This truly is an episode that, you know, would apply to anybody though. I mean, a lot of our episodes are very tailored to like, okay, here’s a skill that somebody has mastered and how to build your personal brand.
RV (03:11):
This is two, but this conversation applies to like everybody and everything that you, you ever do. And so the, my very first takeaway is funny because this was my takeaway years ago when I interviewed him. And it was probably six years ago when I interviewed mark, maybe not that long, maybe four or five years ago, but it was long time ago. And this stuck with me, which is using box breathing as a way of centering yourself. Before, you know, like in his case, he calls it reducing arousal response. That’s what, what Navy seals call it and refer to, which is basically like controlling your emotions to not instantly react, which is what the, the indulgence of the human mind and the human body is just to instantly react. And what I learned in martial arts, which is aligned with what he’s saying here is, you know, you have mind, mind, like water, they call it mind like water, which is like, you know, if you drop a drop of water into a puddle, there are ripples.
RV (04:13):
The ripples are exactly directly proportionate to the size and velocity, which the drop fall in. So it’s like, it is the perfect, the exact perfect response to the stimulus. Not more or not less. What most of us do is we tend to over respond. We tend to overreact. We tend to overanalyze. We tend to over amp ourself up, we get overly anxious, overly nervous, even overly excited, even overly enthusiastic. And, you know, listening to mark talk about this was both taking me back to last time we talked, but even taking me back to when I was a kid studying martial arts about mind like water, which is just basically receiving the stimulus and reflecting back the exact perfect and proportional response. So box breathing is a technique. This is what I love about him, right? As he makes it. So practical is going okay, here is how you center yourself before going into battle, which is that you breathe in. And so you just do four, four counts of whatever number. Let’s just say four counts of four. So you breathe in for four seconds, one, two, three, four. Then you hold for four seconds.
RV (05:27):
Then you breathe out for four seconds. Then you hold for four seconds and the breath, and this is so huge. I mean, this is, this is mind blowing to hear Navy seal at his level, talking about how this, this is a technique that he uses in life and death situations. And yet it’s like, it is our breath. It’s how strong are you? It’s not how fast are you? It’s not, how tough are you? How much pain can you endure? It’s going, can you control your breathing, breathing? As he said, I love this. He said, breathing is, is basically the, the glue between mind, body, and soul and breath is something that you can control. And so you learn to control your breath and by learning to control your breath, you learn to control your emotional response, which controls your body, which controls your brain, which allows you to think clearly, which allows you to react appropriately and swiftly and decisively and sharply.
RV (06:29):
Amazing, amazing. And so, you know, that that certainly applies to a battle, but as a personal brand, when does that show up? It shows up before any presentation, right? It shows up before a keynote before a webinar before you make your offer, right? Like before you get on a big podcast or media interview before, before you turn a video on, right. And you just go, don’t forget to breathe. Like air allows you to think clearly you’re hyperventilating. When it’s time to record your like weekly video blog, like don’t forget to breathe for a second before you hit record and like center yourself. So it’s not so frantic. I think that’s really, really powerful. All right. So that was my first takeaway, which has stuck with me and will continue to stick with me. The second takeaway though, I’ve never heard him say, I’ve actually never heard anybody say, and he said it like very quickly, almost as if like it’s a, you know, it’s like a cliche or it’s like something that is like you know, just kind of a platitude that’s out there in the world.
RV (07:30):
But I had never heard this before. And it really stuck with me as he said, no plan survives contact with an enemy, no plan survives contact with an enemy that is so good and so important. Like for two reasons, one is to go, don’t spend all day planning. It’s not going to work out according to plan anyways. Right? I’m not saying don’t plan, but I’m saying don’t overplay it. All right? Like at some point you just gotta get out there because it’s gonna adapt, like no plan, survives contact with an enemy. The other thing is you have to be flexible. Like you have to be willing to adapt. Like, and, and the word he uses survive, right? This is a very matter of survival. If you can’t adapt, if it drives you nuts, when people don’t follow the plan, if you overreact to people like deviating from the system, like it’s going to eat you alive.
RV (08:33):
And I think as an entrepreneur, right? It’s like, we want to create processes and streamlined and checklist. This is how we multiply time and all that sort of stuff. But it’s like, people are not going to do it the way that you do it. And even when you create a launch plan and you think this is how it’s going to go, like, it’s not, it doesn’t work out perfectly. You have to be in order to survive, you have to be able to adapt and not just adapt, create a new plan. I think there’s a deeper part of this is to go, it’s not just create a new plan. It’s to be emotionally prepared for volatility. It’s to be emotionally prepared for imperfection. It is to be emotionally resilient to the idea that, yeah, I got a plan, but I’ll, I’ll adapt accordingly. I never know what the enemy is going to do.
RV (09:18):
Right. I never know how the project’s going to turn out. I never know what’s going to be thrown at. And so you trust in your, your preparation, but you allow yourself to adapt on the fly. And I think this is really hard. I think this is really hard specifically for entrepreneurs who are, do gooders and checklists and task masters. They like to create the plan, execute the plan. And entrepreneurship is a mess, right? Like success is messy. Success is never perfect. It’s always like, you know, Donald Trump would say, it’s a total disaster. Like it is it. Every time we try to accomplish something, it never works out. There’s always something that shows up that we didn’t expect. No plan survives contact with the enemy, by the way, it reminds me of another, this it’s another one of my favorite quotes, which is kind of like on this subject you know, Mike Tyson said it this way. He said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
RV (10:11):
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. I mean, this is a big deal, right? So a plan is not going to just be the thing that is your shield that causes you to survive like a plan as a starting point. A plan should give you confidence, but it’s like, you can’t hide behind the plan. You can’t expect the plan to go perfectly. You gotta be able to adapt. You gotta be flexible. You gotta be nimble. Because that’s just the way that battle is. And most of us that’s what we’re doing. And so that was super powerful to hear him talk about that. The third takeaway for me, which I’ve I have heard before, maybe not quite in this way, I’ve, you know, we talk about it a lot. You know, this very much points back to the creation principle of integrity in our first book take the stairs, which was, he said an observer or a witness to your own life as a way of help helping yourself better manage your own thoughts.
RV (11:11):
Right. So that I think is so powerful. It’s so true. And that’s a skill set that I learned, you know, I think of all the way back in college, you know, going door to door and dealing with rejection of just like, you know, you’re you, the real battle is in your own mind. And it’s, what are you telling yourself about yourself? And that’s really, it can be a really discouraging space to be in. And what he’s saying is going, okay, just step out of it for a second and observe what you are saying about yourself, about the situation. And he used this phrase, he said, you know, you have the power change your relationship with the past one when you do this. And I think that’s so true is like, once you step back here and you go, okay, those thoughts that I’m having, that’s not me. Those are just thoughts that I’m having. And it’s like separating your thoughts from yourself, which I know feels a little weird, right? You go, wait a minute. How do I separate my thoughts from myself? Like, isn’t my thoughts who I am, but, but I would say, well, no, it definitely isn’t right. Because I mean, think about it this way. Like your thoughts are your thoughts, because if your thoughts are you then who the hell are you talking to? Right?
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Like you’re, you’re the
RV (12:34):
One hearing your thoughts and, and evaluating your thoughts. But I think a lot of us don’t observe, we just kind of allow ourselves to be absorbed and, and assimilated and amalgamated with our thoughts as if they are us not realizing, oh, we have control over our thoughts. And, and even the first step to controlling our thoughts is to observe our thoughts. And, and, and even the, I guess the prerequisite to that is that what you’re doing right now, you’re learning right here that, oh, those thoughts are not you. And you can observe them. So you learn, you know, you realize that then you start to observe them. Then you kind of take note of what you’re saying, and then you naturally go, oh, I don’t like that thought that thought doesn’t serve me. That saw that, that thought, you know, doesn’t give life to me.
RV (13:23):
That thought drains my energy. And this is what amazing is. If your thoughts aren’t serving you, then throw your thoughts out seriously. Like if your thoughts aren’t serving, you throw your thoughts out, but realize the first step is to be an observer of your own thoughts, be a witness to what your thinking about yourself, to what you are telling yourself about yourself. This is super empowering. And what you’ll find when you do this, you’ll be shocked at how many, any of your thoughts don’t even come from you. So many of your thoughts came from a teacher, a parent, a bully, you know, something that somebody said casually to you. They came from a movie, they came from some other books that you read or some line in a song that you heard you know, or some quote that somebody shared with you that you never even stopped to question like, is this real?
RV (14:17):
And you go, whoa, like, or the other thing is a huge number of our thoughts come from immediate responses to stimuli. They come from something happened. We immediately responded and we immediately created a story and said, oh, that happened because I’m not smart. Or that happened because I’m not attractive. Or that happened because I’m not good at blank, or I’m not good enough to blank. And this thought it wasn’t even specifically or deliberately or intentionally crafted. We allowed this thought it happened in an overreaction in moment of over response. And that thought entered our mind. We never questioned it. We never scrutinized it. And now we’ve allowed that thought to build a house and set up its home to define our life about what is possible and what is possible. And the first step to breaking free of that is to become an observer of your thoughts and realize your thoughts are not you, your thoughts are your thoughts. You are hearing your thoughts and you are the author and creator of your own thoughts.
RV (15:28):
This stuff might sound like hooey, phooey. This is one of the other reasons that I love. This is like this kind of stuff, like box breathing and visualization and, you know, be adaptable. And self-talk, these things all sort of feel fluffy, right? Like on their own, they feel you know, they feel decidedly soft and, and kind of like impractical. And maybe even like, you know, I don’t know who he phooey motivationally until you hear commander mark divine, who is an Ivy league graduate has multiple degrees, is best-selling author and has been in the, the most elite of special forces units on the planet and been in war time saying, no, no, no, this is the key. These are the secrets to an unbeatable mind. And if you want to master anything in your life, whether it’s building a personal brand, building a business, making a difference or surviving war, these things are the things that you must do. You must prepare your mind. You must strengthen it, condition it, shape it over and over and over again, because it is the asset that you will have with you for the rest of your life, which is a good reason to keep coming back here to the influential personal brand podcast. We’re so glad that you’re here. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 180: How Personal Brands Can Create an Unbeatable Mind with Mark Divine

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 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 AJ 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.

Ep 165: Successful Self-Talk for Personal Brands with Jon Acuff | Recap Episode

Getting out of your own way and learning to believe in yourself, what a great chat with my friend long-time friend, John Acuff welcome to this special recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Rolling solo here today. No AJ, but I’m dissecting and debriefing this, this discussion that I had with John and I, I love John because, you know, when I watch him as a speaker, I just think he’s hilarious. And, and insightful. But every time I spend time with him, one-on-one he always phrases things in a way that I can like grab hold of them. And

This conversation was no different and this is kind of a newer, a different space for him than I, I think, you know, a lot of his early work was really rounded, like really, to, I guess, more of like your career and, and, and how do you, you know, kind of keep track of your career and then he’s moved more and more into like the inspiration, motivation, and goal setting space. And so anyways, this is just a fun conversation, fun to see the evolution of his career and all the different ways, all the different ways that he uses his, the various assets and skillsets that he has. And so I want to give you my top three takeaways from the conversation like we do on every, every episode in terms of what stuck out to me. And the first thing was, you know, of course this was a, this was basically a conversation about successful self-talk for personal brands.

And the difference between overthinking and preparation was a huge distinction for me, where he basically said preparation leads to action. So preparation ultimately is pointing you towards action. You’re getting closer and closer to action. Whereas overthinking just leads to more thinking. And I think that’s really good, right. Is to go because there’s value in being prepared. There’s value in thinking through things. There’s, there’s a lot of value to go and let’s make sure we do things right and not just do them fast. And so, you know, that’s always something that I’ve wrestled with. I think a lot of, a lot of you wrestle with that is going okay, you know, how much is the right amount to widdle on my website before it goes live? How much is it right to like edit on my manuscript before I just send it in? You know, how many times do I need to edit my video before I just post it?

And, you know, so I think there’s this, this, this balance of like working in it and refining it and preparing for it. But also not with procrastinating and overthinking. And so that was a huge distinction to me of going, okay, you know, you’re doing the right, like, you know, it’s a healthy use of your time. If it’s like moving you closer to action and to better action and to more effective action, then I feel like that’s the, that’s the healthy indicator. But if you’re just thinking, and then it’s causing you to think more and think more and think more, and you’re not actually stepping closer to hitting publish or to going live or to launching or to action, then it’s really just creative avoidance to borrow a term from my take the stairs book. Right. That that’s really all it is. And I thought what John said was super powerful when he said over thinking is anything that anything that you think that gets in the way of what you want overthinking is anything that you think that gets in the way of what you want.

That’s super powerful, right? It’s just, just going, okay. You know, overthinking could be negative thinking. It could be procrastination, it could be distraction. It’s just any type of thinking that gets in the way of what you want. And this is so critical to me because I think becoming a, whatever, a best-selling author, a successful speaker, building a successful personal brand, being a successful entrepreneur, what people don’t realize is we think that the battle is out in the tactical of like, how do I do this? And what technology do I use? And who’s the right vendor and how do I structure? And, you know, there’s like a lot of the details and, and, and, and those things are important, right? I mean, a lot of what we teach at brand builders group is related to those, those tactical things. But you, you can’t win that battle until you first win the battle in your mind that you, you deserve this and that you need to take action.

And so that’s why I loved this episode was because, you know, you have John and I both kind of going back and forth sharing various insecurities that we’ve had to overcome and that we still have to overcome, and that we wrestle with to kind of get to where we are and, and, you know, to, to where we’re wanting to go. And I think, you know, that’s just really big, it’s understanding that distinction of what is healthy thinking in terms of preparation and Polish and, and editing and, and making things better versus unhealthy thinking, which is ultimately just an excuse to not have to take action. So I really enjoyed that. The second thing is less about something that John said specifically and more just about this topic in general. I think the idea of positive self-talk or affirmations, you know, this mental programming, these are, these are things that I’ve cared a lot about.

I’ve practiced a lot. I’ve read a lot about research, a lot about and written about, I mean, and, and take the stairs. So in my first book, take the stairs. There’s a whole section called the creation principle of integrity which talks about this very deliberate connected pattern between the, the things you say to yourself in your head, which John calls, soundtracks, which I think is kind of a cool, a cool metaphor illustration of, of it, and how that ends up manifesting the results that you experienced in your life. And it becomes a huge part of the mechanism. And, and I think, you know, so there’s just a, this is a moment to recap some of those, but the biggest thing is just for you to know that the way that your brain works is that you don’t believe what is true. I don’t believe

Leave what is true. We don’t believe what is true. We believe

Ever. We hear most often, like our brain is neutral in its ability to determine truth. What, what we associate as truth is just whatever we’ve heard with the most frequency and we’ve decided and convinced ourselves or allowed ourselves to believe that that is his truth. Rarely do we take everything that we believe to be true and run it through, you know, like data analysis, or do we test it against historical accuracy or, or scientific corroboration? Most of the things that we believe is kind of like, you know, it’s because we heard them. And so the good news about that is that you can rewrite your programming. I mean, your brain is like an operating system. I, when, when people talk about belief, you know, I think the mind often kind of wonders, at least mine, mind thinks of that as kind of almost like touchy, feely or esoteric or abstract.

It’s kind of like out there in the world of, of go. And the, I don’t really know how do I believe in myself that is you know, it’s, it feels somehow impractical, but when you think, okay, my brain is an operating system, it’s like a computer and it runs on a program and the program is whatever. I tell it to run, whatever, I’ve what I, whatever I have been telling it most often, that is belief. And, you know, John calls those soundtracks, which I think is a great as an easy parallel for people to understand. But whatever you’re struggling with is, is not the truth. Like whatever, your, whatever you’re telling yourself about why you can’t succeed or whatever question you have about like, am I good enough or smart enough or experienced enough? It’s not based in truth. It’s based in unfamiliar unfamiliarity.

That’s a hard one to say unfamiliarity, because as you tell yourself over and over again, this a new, you, you restate something it’s, it literally is a new neural pathway that’s formed in your brain. And the more times you have that thought, the easier it is to, for those synapses to fire. And that becomes accepted as truth as a way of thinking, it’s, it’s, it’s written into your programming. So you have to architect your own operating system. You’ve got to program yourself. And if that feels weird to you, like, Oh, I have to program myself. The only thing that’s weirder than that is going, if you don’t do it, you’re allowing other people to do it. So this is happening, whether you want it to happen or not. Most of our programming comes from our parents and our friends and our TV, you know, like the media and our church, or like whatever we’ve been told.

So either you’re doing it intentionally, or it’s just happening to you accidentally. And that’s a real dilemma. And I’ve been shocked over time because I, I grabbed hold of this concept early in my life. I’ve had pretty healthy self-talk for most of my life. But as time has gone on, I’m realizing how many people have never been exposed to this or got exposed to it late in life. And they have all of this negative conditioning. And what, what scares me is that most of us would never let someone talk about their family member, the way we allow ourselves to talk about ourselves. That’s scary to me. You would never let someone talk about your mom or your spouse, or your brother, your sister, or your kids. Like you would never let some stranger say the kind of things about them that you allow yourself to say about yourself all day, every day.

And that is scary and heartbreaking because it’s not true. The only thing that is making it true is that your telling yourself that over and over again, and it is just as easy for you to say the complete opposite of that and say it again and again. And that is what becomes truth is you might say, well, it’s a lie. It’s not that it’s a lie. It’s that it’s new. And so it’s unfamiliar. It’s kind of like walking. I use this illustration a lot is like, it’s why you go hiking in the, in the woods or something. There is a path it’s easiest to stay on the path. That path has been paved, right? Like the path has been made. If I want to go off that path and go a different route, there’s no path there’s literally brush and trees that I have to peel back and knock down and pull apart.

And you might have to dig or lay rocks across the stream or build a bridge, right? It’s, it’s, it’s much harder the first time to form that new path. But then every subsequent time you go down that path over and over and over, even the second or third time, it’s exponentially easier than it was the first time. And by the 50th time or the hundredth time, that path is just as clear as the one you used to take. And so it becomes just as easy. And that’s how truth works. Well, that’s not how truth works. That’s how your brain works right. There, there are things that are true. I’m not saying that there isn’t truth. I’m saying what our brains perceive and receive and accept this truth are what we hear most often. And that is something you have a lot more control over than you realize.

There are certain things that are true. They can be proven true. They’re scientifically true, but that’s not, most of what’s in our head. Most of what is in our head, we’ve never even bothered to ask to say, who said that? Who told me that? Is that even right? Like, you know, is that even accurate to Thomas Edison really invent the light bulb? I don’t know, like I wasn’t there, but, but, but a lot of people go, well, of course he did. Well. Why? Well, because my history teacher told me and I read it in a book. But in fact, the more you dig into that, the more you’ll find there’s quite a lot of discrepancy about whether or not Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. Right now. I’m not here to challenge Thomas Edison. I’m here to say that there are things like that, that you accept as certainty that are not certain, they’re just familiar.

They’re just repeated with regularity and our brain interprets that as truth. And so belief doesn’t have to be this hooey phooey kind of gushy abstract thing. It is a concrete matter of programming your own brain, the way you would program a computer. And you’re either doing it deliberately to yourself or you’re allowing it to happen accidentally through other means. And which I think is kind of the essence of what John’s whole book and the conversation was all about. So that was really good. And then the third takeaway for me, which I loved, and this was, this was inspired by something John said, but I don’t think he said it exactly like this. But as I went back and I was listening to the interview and I was replaying it in my head and I was reviewing my notes, what really hit me. And perhaps this was the most salient learning moment of the conversation for me personally, is that your clients can’t hire you at a level that is higher than what you believe in yourself to be right.

Like, I can’t hire you at a level that is higher than you believe yourself to be. And there are certain clients who would pay more, who look, they look at you and they see you in a way that’s even higher than you see yourself, which is kind of wild, right? It’s like they don’t even know half of what you’ve been through. They don’t even know half of what you’ve learned. They haven’t seen half of the strife and trouble and problems and challenges and experiences in education. You know, that, that you know about yourself. And yet they see you in a more elevated light than you see yourself. That shouldn’t be right. That’s not fair. That doesn’t make any sense. Why is it that way? It, it, it’s just because some of us, a lot of us are harder on ourselves and more demanding on ourselves even than the people around us.

And that is something that is holding you back. Like you might think, Oh, this is just like a, you know, a good idea that I should believe in myself, but this is literally a dollars and cents thing. Like they can’t hire you. They can’t pay you for more than you think you’re worth. Like you’ll, you’ll sabotage it. It won’t work. There’ll be this disconnect and, and many cases, they probably see you even better and more credible and more qualified than you see yourself. So you have to proactively intentionally deliberately develop your, your own. Self-Confidence in a way of how you speak about yourself, what you tell yourself, your worth based on what you’ve done, because clients, aren’t going to be able to hire you at a level that is beyond what that is for you. And so that raised starts in your mind, you know, that level of credibility, that level of cachet, that level of respect starts in your mind.

And, you know, you throw out whoever the names are in your industry or your space and, and, you know, in your mind you kind of go that, that person’s the leader or that that person is the number one, you know, and, you know, in your mind, you kind of like rank, where do you compare with that person? And you’ve got to proactively, like, if, if you don’t really believe you’re at the top of your game, and I’m not saying that you have to think you’re the best. You may, you may not be the best, but, but where are you at really? And that’s based on how much value can you provide to your clients? How much experience do you really have? How much education do you really have and, and going okay, if I’m struggling with self doubt, I either need to do some things proactively.

I need to increase my education. You know, I need to increase my education. My experience, I need to increase my network. I need to grow my platform. My following, like there’s certain things that I need to do that would help me do that. And, and some of them are tactical and practical, and some of them are just the mental conditioning of your own mind, the way that you would strengthen a physical muscle, you have to do the same thing, which you know, very directly and repeatedly in this conversation is self-talk. And what you tell yourself about yourself. So, you know, the way that John said it, which I really loved, I thought this was, was clever retire, replace, and repeat, retire,

Replace and repeat. Because you probably wouldn’t let other people say some of the things about your family that are things that you say about yourself. You’ve got to develop your own. Self-Confidence your own conviction, your own level of certainty that you’re speaking from your uniqueness. You’re speaking from a place of experience. You’re speaking, not just from a matter of what you’ve done, but because you’re living a calling of who the world needs you to be, and that you’re fulfilling a purpose that was set out for your life and out of that should come a great conviction, that it is worth something very, very honorable. That’s all we got for this week’s influential, personal brand podcast recap. Keep coming back, my friends and stay tuned. We’re so grateful for you. Bye-Bye

Ep 164: Successful Self-Talk for Personal Brands with Jon Acuff

RV: (00:08)

Hey brand builder, Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview. We are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming. From anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call, hope to talk to you soon on with the show.

RV: (01:04)

Well, yeah, every so often I got to get together with my pal, Acuff, John Acuff, and tell you what he’s up to and glean some wisdom from him. If you don’t know who he is, he’s the New York times bestselling author of seven books. His last book was a number one wall street journal bestseller called finish. Give yourself the gift of done. He’s incredible speaker. He’s freaking hilarious. He’s been doing a lot of research lately and conducting studies and just really fascinating. We’ll hear about that as related to goals and specifically today about overthinking, but he speaks for big companies, FedEx Nissan Chick-Filet he’s got well over half a million people following him on social and we’ve just been friends for years. He lives here in Nashville. And so we have known each other for a while and he’s got a new book that is coming out called soundtracks, the surprising solution to overthinking.

RV: (02:07)

And so we’re going to talk about what that is and specifically some of the mindset issues that need to be resolved to really build and grow and become an influential personal brand like Mr. Aycock. So John brother, welcome back. Yeah. Thanks for having me again, Roy. It’s always fun to see you. Yeah, man. So so tell me about soundtracks. What, what is this all about? Where did this come from? I know that you’ve been really diving into some of the data and some of the research here in the last few years. And so I’m guessing this is connected to that.

JA: (02:45)

Yeah. So I would say if you’re a personal brand and you’re going to launch a book, you’re going to do a product you’re going to do any sort of new endeavor. There’s three things to look for. That’s kind of my Venn diagram. The first thing is you look for a personal connection. Do I have a personal connection to this content? Second thing is, is there a real need in the marketplace? Can I identify a need? The third is, is there a hole in the market for me to put it into? So for me I’ve always been an overthinker. I learned some things about my thoughts and that I got to choose them in 2008 and it kind of launched my speaking career. And so I’d been working on choosing my thoughts, which turned into my actions, which turn into results for a long time.

JA: (03:28)

And then I said, okay, but I wonder if other people need that, are there other overthinkers? And so I have a PhD named Mike Peasley who helps me with research and we asked 10,000 people if they struggle with overthinking and 99.5% of them said yes. So I knew there was a need. And then I went to the marketplace and there’s some great books about overthinking, but a lot of them say, stop it, stop it, stop it. And my opinion was, why would I ever turn off this amazing machine? What if I just said it with good things were thoughts that pushed me forward up thoughts that pushed me back. And so that for me was the Venn diagram where I said, okay, I’m willing to invest a few years of my life into this idea. And I think it’s going to reach a lot of people and I’m deeply connected to it. So let me spend the time. That’s kind of the Genesis of why I decided to write about overthinking.

RV: (04:16)

So when you say overthinking, is that the same as saying, we’re thinking limiting thoughts about ourselves. Like we’re, we’re, we’re dealing with self doubt and insecurity and there’s like, like when you say soundtrack is like the metaphor here, is it the, it is the negative kind of tape rolling in our mind is that’s what we’re talking about.

JA: (04:41)

It can be at a hundred percent. Can be. I mean that, you know, one of the things we say is that in all the research, cause we took thousands of people through this. Like that for me has been the evolution as a personal brand, you know, early books. I didn’t understand the research side of things. Now I have ideas in this office, but if I send them out of this office, you know, who they help John ACOF, you can only, it’s a very narrow focus. But if I take all these ideas and I have the generous thousands of readers who go we’ll test those for a month, we’ll give you feedback. We’ll then I have 35 different stories where a stay-at-home mom, a CEO, you know, a college student can go, Oh, I see myself in that book because I’ve tested the ideas with other people.

JA: (05:22)

And so for me, one of the things we said was we never found somebody who’s problem was they over-thought compliments. We never found somebody. Who’s like, I just keep overthinking what a good mom I am. And it’s really causing problems in my life. But on a broader sense, I define overthinking as when, what you think gets in the way of what you want. And the difference between overthinking and being prepared. Cause that’s great. Natural pushback. Okay. Well maybe I’ll just prepare it. I like to be analytical. Being prepared, always leads to action. Overthinking always leads to overthinking. It always just leads to more thinking. So be, be analytical, just look okay, does this turn into action? If it doesn’t, you might be stuck in an overthinking loop. I call that a soundtrack, which is this, you know, kind of repetitive thought that you hear again and again

RV: (06:10)

And again say, and you say that again. You said being prepared, always leads to action, but overthinking just leads to more thinking

JA: (06:19)

Some more overthinking. Yeah. That’s the difference. So if you said to me, you know, as somebody who writes books, people come up to me and go, Oh, I’ve always wanted to write a book. I’ve been working on one for 10 years. I know that that’s too long. Like I know, you know that you’re, there’s the chance you’re overthinking that. Where if you say I’m working on a book, I’ve already finished four chapters, I’ve already submitted to the publisher. Like I can see actions. And so the goal of the book is to help you get new thoughts that lead to new actions that generate new results. And most people don’t understand that they get to choose what they think about. They think I thought of something. They have not something they hone. And what I, what I try to teach is your thoughts are going to come by choice or chance and choices so much better.

RV: (07:04)

So as it, as you apply this to personal brands and specifically yourself, you’ve built a huge social media following, you have launched New York times bestselling books, you have this great speaking career. What are some of the evolutions of like the soundtracks that you’ve had to battle in your own mind related to those different things? Or is there a certain part of your business that you’ve really struggled with it? Or is there like, if, is, has it been like a series of, you know, I had to overcome this hurdle and then this hurdle and this hurdle, and like talk to us about your evolution as a personal brand, as it relates to the evolution of the soundtracks you’ve had to like rewrite in your own head.

JA: (07:54)

Sure. Well, I mean, where I first discovered that it was powerful, impossible was 2008. I get an email from an event planner. Who’s been reading a blog. I had and said, Hey, would you come speak at our event? I’d never spoken professionally before. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I didn’t know. People got paid for it. I didn’t know how to do it. All I had was a thought, I had a new soundtrack that said, I think you can do this. I think I can do this. And then I, I threw overwhelming action at it. I worked on it. I did repetitions. I worked on it and it changed my life. Like the start of that thought was the start of me moving to Nashville was the start of writing. New York times. Best sellers was to start getting a speaker on the world.

JA: (08:33)

All I had no other evidence except for that thought. So that’s an example of where it worked well for me, where I said, okay, I’m going to listen to this soundtrack. I’m I’m going to make it true through action. And I’m going to see the results I get through that one that’s been more challenging is I’ve got a note right on my wall right here. I’ll pull it off. And all it says is ask for more. And I wrote that on 27th, 2020, because I found myself in negotiations, undervaluing my work. That’s something that every personal brand struggles with the idea of like, what do I price it as? I don’t want to price it as too much I don’t want to. And so I just, I needed those words. They’re not sexy. They’re not that, I mean, they’re not that catchy, but I needed to see ask for more because I found myself listening to a broken soundtrack, who are you to charge that amount of money?

JA: (09:19)

Who are you to give that advice? Who are you? And I think that’s something that every personal brand struggles with. So for me, when it came to specifically money, I needed to say, okay, remember, ask for more, remember, ask for more value. What you do remember ask for more, even if it takes, you know, people have said that before, like, even if it takes you an hour, they’re paying you for the 10 years of expertise. They’re not paying for you for the hour. So change that soundtrack. So yeah, I would say there’s been, for me, it’s been a process. And every time I find a new one, I go, okay, what, what do I want to do with that broken soundtrack? How am I going to change that? How am I going to use a new one to push me forward into my business?

RV: (10:00)

And is that, so that’s a great example. So negotiating fees, or just what you’re pricing, your various offerings that have there been any others in the journey that we’re like along the way that were big ones or as it just kind of been more like a series of small ones.

JA: (10:17)

I mean, it’s been like they come in all shapes and sizes and that’s the fun thing is a soundtrack can be a song lyric. It can be a question from a friend. It can be a paragraph you read in a book. It’s not that you have to sit down and come up with the next, just do it. Don’t put that pressure on yourself. So for me, another one that I recognized fairly big one was when I show up at a speaking event, I’m there to serve the client. Not there to look like a rockstar. I want the event planner to win. I want the CEO to look good. I want the audience to win. And that service switch changed everything. Because now I get to say to the event planner, I’m here for 45 minutes. You’re here all year. How do I make you look like a rockstar?

JA: (10:58)

What have I done that? My goal is you’re getting texts during my speech from your CEO that says, this is exactly the kind of keynote we were looking for. Thank you so much for that. And that mindset changes how you serve on the front end. Now I’m, you know, I’m having a pre-call interview where I’m really digging in and going, what are the needs? What are the challenges? How do I serve them? Versus I have a keynote. I want John AKF to look a certain way. I want to get X amount of applause. Like that’s not what I’m trying to do. And that changed my business because then an event planner goes, okay, this is like, we’re working together. Like this is somebody who’s on my side. This is somebody who’s going to be easy to work with. I want to book them again. I want to recommend them other people. So that’s another example of a, a big one for me that I would say, okay, that changed how I look at, you know every event I speak out.

RV: (11:47)

Yeah. I love that. I I think that is so cool that it’s healthy for your, for your mindset. And it is a massive driver for the business, right? For them, the moment they think of you as like their partner versus like a piece like a, it’s like a speaker as a table setting. It’s like a task on a checklist that you check off when you’re planning a meeting. Like you have to deal with this thing. But once you kind of come on that side of like, this is a partner, this is my asset. Now you’re like doing stuff together. Long-Term I love that. Now I know you get the question a lot because you’ve got such a big social media following about, I want to write a book. I want to do what you do. What do you think are some of the biggest negative soundtracks that you hear? Other people that are personal brands, like th that you think, gosh, this is one I hear, or I notice all the time that keeps people stuck from like doing it. Whether it’s writing the book, starting the podcast, you know, going live on social, starting the keynote business. So what are, what are some of the other ones that you feel like, gosh, I see these all the time for personal brands.

JA: (13:02)

Yeah. The results aren’t coming fast enough, you know?

RV: (13:05)

Oh my gosh, that’s so good. The results, right.

JA: (13:08)

Coming fast enough. I tried this thing. It didn’t work. How long did you try it for 10 days? Well, that, I mean, what could you have possibly learned in 10 days? You know, I have a friend who’s a YouTube expert and we always talk about that because that’s one of the challenges is that people will go. I know, I know, I know I won’t get instant monetization. I know, I know it’s not going to be like, they say that on the front end, but the reality is three months in. They go, Hey, how come? I’m not like making a million dollars on YouTube yet? And you go, well, like it takes time to grow the thing. It takes time to serve the audience. It takes time to be. So like, I always, you know, my soundtrack to that would be the positive version would be accept the gift of invisibility.

JA: (13:46)

Like you get to make some mistakes when you’re invisible that you won’t get to make when you’re public. So don’t fight that, like learn the things before everybody’s watching, grow the things, like get a structure, get a foundation so that when I ball show up, you’ve got something to do with them. There’s a lot of personal brands that a million people getting into your thing would wreck your company. Cause you couldn’t even handle that. So like learning to be patient with the results and gracious with the progress, I think is a, is a big, is a big soundtrack. And, and like focusing on the marketing before the craft. So I think like to take writing, for instance, people go, I got to spend a ton of marketing and go, well, did you spend any on editing? They go, no, I didn’t. It didn’t need to be edited.

JA: (14:30)

It was great idea. And I go, then it, it’s not going to have a long tail. Like you need to like, make sure the craft is good too. Not just the marketing. And you see this when people say, Hey, John, I need writing advice. I’ll go. Sure. No problem. Then go, which publisher should I work with? And I’ll go, is, does the book exist yet? Do you have a good concept? And it’s, and there, you know, there’s this to rush to the finish line versus go. I have to do the things that are going to take me a little bit to get better at and grow. And so, yeah, I think those are that. And then I’m trying to achieve a hundred percent acceptance of your idea. I’m thinking that’s possible. It’s not, they’re going to be people that don’t like your idea and that’s okay.

JA: (15:13)

And if you get distracted by them, we live in a culture that over focuses on small handfuls of people. So you read an article that goes huge backlash to dah, dah, dah, dah, and you read the article and it was four people on Twitter that each have 20 followers. And that was huge backlash. So as a personal brand, you have to go, here’s who I’m serving these three people who weren’t going to buy my thing. Anyway, don’t get to decide that I don’t do it. And so that’s another one is not talking about your stuff enough and consistently. So my example of that would be out in, you know, back before COVID I do book tours and say, I’d go to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and I’d tell people three different times, three different ways, emails, Instagram, I’m coming to Lincoln or coming to Lincoln. Lancaster. I’d feel like I’m bothering them.

JA: (15:57)

And then the next day I’d post the picture of the event in Lancaster. And inevitably people would go, Oh, I wish I’d known about it. Like why? And so I was afraid of the random person who, by the way, doesn’t live in Lancaster, somebody in Dallas going, Oh, stop talking about your event. That wasn’t for you dude. Like, but I underserved the people it was for in fear of the one person. So I think sometimes keeping your focus on the people you’re trying to serve versus the people who just want to be professionally angry and are always going to do that anyway. Like they don’t even want to be happy. So don’t, don’t let them tell you how you shape your business.

RV: (16:31)

Yeah. Those are, those are, those are good. I mean that the, in the timeline, I mean, I couldn’t agree more. It’s just like, people get so discouraged. I feel like, I mean, frankly, I mean, how, how many years have you? And I know each other, I think it’s been like 10 years now. Cause I think I met you

JA: (16:47)

For coffee at Starbucks. And like, that was like 10 years ago.

RV: (16:52)

And it’s like, how many people? 10, 10 years ago. I don’t know. Like, so we’re in our early, early thirties then, right? Yeah. There were so many people that were like, Oh, I want to write a book. I want to do that. I really feel like 80% of the battle is just hanging around. I mean like you and I have been at this 10 years and it’s like, we have all of these ideas. Like if you do this technique and this technique, and it’s like, the reality of it is like, we just been here for 10 years. People start to hear about it.

JA: (17:21)

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it’s so funny. I’ll have people go. I met somebody the other day. I was like, man, love your books, got a couple at my house. I was like, this is awesome. They said, when’s the next like, are you working on anything new? And I was like, yeah, I have a new book that comes out in two weeks. They’re like never heard of it. And so like, you just have to stay in the conversation. You have to try things, you have to experiment, you have to be, you know, willing to go, okay. That didn’t work and that’s okay. Like you can’t get your identity up in the personal, that’s the other thing, when your identity is a hundred percent wrapped up in your personal brand, now when somebody criticizes it, they’re criticizing you, not the thing that you’re creating and that makes it really hard to stay brave.

JA: (18:01)

And so there’s all these things where you have to be really deliberate. But yeah, I mean, for me, it’s, it’s, I think it’s really fun. I don’t think it’s too late. Somebody asked me that the other day I started a podcast this year and they were like, isn’t it a little late to get into podcast? And I was like, well, I mean, this is the time I have, like, I don’t know if the window was 2004 because I clearly missed that one. So I’m going to start it today. And so I think being willing to start something, regardless of the timeframe it can just be really encouraging to a personal brand.

RV: (18:31)

Yeah. And I mean, just to like to share a little bit of my personal story, it was pretty discouraging two years ago when I had to start all of my social media over and all of my podcasts over and then, you know, it took us a while to even get going. And then we started like my YouTube channel, like a year ago. And it’s like, man, I’ve been in this business since I was 17. I’m posting videos that get eight views.

JA: (18:57)

And I’m just like, Oh my gosh, dude, I’ll tweet five different times to 290,000 people on Twitter and I’ll have videos of like 30 views. And you’re like, this is like, like that. Yeah. So I, I get that. And then anytime you start something it’s gonna take time. Like I wish my podcast had a million downloads. I wish I had Lewis Howes audience, but you know what I haven’t done. I haven’t put in Lewis house work to my podcast. And so,

RV: (19:25)

And to your, to your point too, it’s like, even though it’s painful, I sure am glad I started my YouTube channel a year ago and didn’t wait until right now because it’s like, at least I’ve got, I’ve got it going again. Right. Like it’s starting to grow and yeah.

JA: (19:39)

And you developed a muscle. That’s the other thing you develop the muscle, like so much of this is like getting into the muscle so that you’re not afraid of the work. So like doing the writing, doing the speaking, doing the consulting, you know, putting your flag up. I think that’s the other thing is people say people aren’t booking me for whatever and I’ll go, well, do they know you do that? And a lot of times they don’t even, they can’t book you if they don’t know you do it. And so you have to talk about it. You have to talk about it beyond your comfort zone. And I think that’s challenging.

RV: (20:09)

So is the, is the strategy here basically recognize when you have one of these is that half the battle is just go recognizing, Oh, I have a negative soundtrack going on. And then basically just installing a new one and just going, what would be more, what would be more helpful? Like ask for more as you go, Oh, I’m undervaluing myself. I need to install a new soundtrack called ask for more.

JA: (20:35)

Yeah. So the, the process is really simple. I like to, you know, part of my job, I consider myself a handle maker. I try to put, handles on ideas so that people can take them with them. Like we have enough ideas in the world. We don’t have handles, carry them into Tuesday and next Thursday and a month from now. So the three things you do is you retire your broken soundtracks, you replace them with new soundtracks and then you repeat them. So often they become as automatic as the old ones. So you retire, you replace, you repeat. And if somebody said, well, okay, what do I know to retire? No problem. The easiest way to find a broken soundtrack is to think of something you want to do personal brand. You want to write a book, you want to start a podcast. You want to do YouTube, write that down and then listen to the first reaction. The first thought you have, because every reaction is an education. And so you write that down. And then now that you’ve got that, you ask it three questions. Is this thing that I just heard? Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind? And if it’s not, if you can’t say yes to all those three things, you probably need to retire it and come up with a new one that you then repeat until you actually believe it.

RV: (21:44)

Yeah. I love it. Well this is so awesome. I mean, it it’s, it is such an important part. And like with personal branding, everyone’s like, well, give me the technique, give me the technique. And it’s like, it like everything. It’s more about the mindset. Like if you don’t believe you’re worth it, if you don’t believe you can succeed, like until you believe that you actually have value to offer the world, it doesn’t matter how many programs you take on social media strategy or building funnels or being good on stage. It’s like, if you don’t believe that about yourself, it’s nothing else matters.

JA: (22:24)

Nobody else will. Like your belief has to be here to get people to hear like it’s a sliding scale. And so for me, I always think about two things. I think about confidence and competence, like great personal brands have confidence and competence. So I have the confidence I’m going to like, I’m going to stand on the stage and believe I have a spot on that stage. And part of the reason I’m going to believe that is I’ve built competence. I’ve done the reps. Like the, like one of my favorites, kinda like, like little hacks, if you will, is I had a, a pastor say to me, John you know, I’ve got a new position where I read the announcements every Sunday and I’m nervous about speaking. And I was like, well, how, you know, how many times do you practice? And he said, I do at one time. And I said, well, you’re only getting one rep. So practice that 10 minute thing, four times each week, you’ll get four years of practice in a single year. So like, that’s the, that’s the competence part. And so I think there’s a lot of that where you go, okay, if I can combine those two things, there’s, there’s nothing I won’t be able to do.

RV: (23:21)

Yeah. I love that. We had John Lee Dumas on here a few weeks ago, like with his launch. And one of the things that really stuck with me was he said, you know, AAJ pick this up where we asked, is it quantity or quality? And he said, well, it’s the same because quantity is what leads to quality. Always. I mean, it’s just like

JA: (23:43)

Seinfeld says, it’s a game of tonnage. Like writing is a game of tonnage that you have to. And John Lee Dumas is a great example. Like I think his book, like his book has so many things in it, then I was like, Oh no, he’s right. And I’m not doing that. Like, I love how he simplified it. I love what he laid out. So yeah, I had him on my podcast too. And he was a really fun actually doing it interview. Yeah. Well buddy, where should people go if they w they want to learn about this new book is sounds soundtracks. The surprising solution to overthinking available wherever books are sold, but where should people go get it? Well, I mean, you can get it certainly Amazon, your local bookstore, whatever. But if you’re curious and you’re like, all right, I want to read the first chapter first, just go to soundtracks, book.com. You can download the first chapter, check it out before you actually buy the book. And then if you’re, you know, if you had a good time today, or like, I’d like to know a little more about how John’s doing his personal brand check on my podcast, it’s called all it takes is a goal. And it’s about goal setting because I believe that starting is fun, but the future belongs to finishers. And so I have a podcast that’ll help you actually finish the book.

RV: (24:55)

I love it. So we’ll put links to that and soundtracks, plural yall, soundtracks, book.com is where you go, buddy. It’s always great to reconnect with you. I learned so much from you every time I talk, and I’m just proud of what you’re doing. And it’s really, really wonderful and inspiring to see how you continue to grow and shape lives, man. So keep it up.

JA: (25:17)

Thanks for having me on, man. It’s always encouraging to connect and see, see where you are in your, in your Nashville experience.

Ep 153: Fear Fighting and Being Bold with Luvvie Ajayi Jones | Recap Episode

Woo Luvvie Ajayi Jones is fire she’s fire professional troublemaker, the fear fighter manual with our good friend and client Luvvie Ajayi Jones, which I’m so proud of Luvvie. I mean, you have a woman right now who is blowing up. She’s a rolling stone, viral Ted talks, explosive speaking fees best-selling books, exponential growth on social media. She’s doing projects with Brene Brown levy. We are so proud of you and honored to just see you doing what you’re doing and to feel like we have a little bit of a front row seat. And for you making us look better than we deserve because you are just awesome. And what a great interview this was. Obviously I’m, I’m so low with you this time. AJ, wasn’t able to join us tonight. But I am just on fire from that interview with Lovie. And I love the thing that she said, in fact, this is, this is my first, this is my first of my three key takeaways is that courage is contagious.

Courage is contagious. Who are you borrowing courage from? And who are you? Loaning courage to what a great, powerful, simple idea on both sides on both sides. There is, is this idea that there are there when you feel scared when you feel weak, when you feel unsure, when you feel uncertain, when you feel like you’re, you’re facing the unknown, when you don’t know what to do, you can borrow courage from the bold. There are people around you that you can borrow courage from. And I think that’s the part of the power of the human experience is this transference of emotion that comes from just being in relationship with others. And, and man, I feel that I draw that from her. I mean, I’m, as she’s talking, I’m literally drawing that from her. And then also equally as powerful, probably more powerful is who are you loaning courage to?

Who are you loading courage to? Who are you being strong enough for? Who are you supporting? How are you emitting, emoting? Transferring power and energy is strength and courage and bravery and bold because you are, you know, you’re transmitting something, you are putting off some type of energy. You are affecting the world around you, right? You’re either bringing them up or you’re bringing them down. You’re either making them stronger or you’re making them weak or you’re, you’re, I we’re either making the world around you more powerful or you’re making the world around. You feel more powerless. And that is a choice that you get to choose and I get to choose in every single moment. And I love that. It’s just such a great, such a great reminder of the human experience, this, this, you know, what it means to be, to be alive.

Courage is contagious, all emotion, all energy is contagious. We are balls of energy. I mean, we, that is what we are. So don’t forget that. And, and don’t forget to summon that, right? So be that for someone and also some in that and draw from it. If you, if you, if you need it, the second big takeaway for me that I really loved. Well, here’s what, here’s what Luvvie said. She said if, if it is perpend, if, if, if it is purpose-driven and it is my obligation to be myself, right? She said, it’s my obligation to be myself, which I really, I really do love, I, I like this idea that it’s, it’s like your responsibility is to live into everything that you were created to be, to be the person that nobody else can be it to be more of who you are.

I love, I love what one of our good friends, Sally Hogshead always says that she says you become more fascinating by becoming more of who you are. And I think Luvvie is a great example of that. She’s a real life example of just living into who she is, but, but I wanted to adapt you know, for me in terms of how I I get, I get, I get the luxury of being able to go back and listen, and then think about how I’m gonna apply this stuff to my life. And I, I, I’m going to adapt it a little bit for me to say my obligation isn’t to myself. I see it as my obligation is to my purpose, right? So, so, you know, I am here for something you are here for, and the longer I’m around, the more that I am convinced that the reason that I am here and I have this hypothesis, that the reason that you are here also is, is not so much for yourself.

It is for yourself in the context of someone else, that the reason we go through the pain that we go through is because of how we are going to transform that and apply that in the future to someone else, that the reason that we have to learn the things that we learn is because one day we’re going to teach it to somebody else. The reason that we have the victories that we have is because one day, those victories are going to become courage, that we lend that as contagion to somebody else that, that the achievement and the title and the awards and the, and the followers and the likes and the, whatever the, the worldly measurements are, are quite insignificant, quite trivial, and quite unsustainable in terms of their ability to bring you joy and satisfaction and, and depth of fulfillment.

And yet, ironically, the thing that brings us deep joy, deep fulfillment, deep satisfaction, it’s not something that takes decades and decades to accomplish. It’s not something that requires us to be a celebrity or to be credible, or to have thousands of followers or big fancy titles, or, or, you know, lots of know, whatever world worldly, victories, or bullet points in our biography to display. The thing that gives us the greatest deepest satisfaction is to serve another life, to have my life matter and make a difference to another, not necessarily to go viral to millions of people, but to, to have it mattered to one. And if you follow me on this, and part of where my hypothesis comes from is that I’ve tried all sorts of worldly, worldly things. I’ve pursued all sorts of worldly things. And, and honestly, I’ve accomplished a lot of those worldly things.

And yet found they fall short, nothing, nothing quite delivers on the feeling and the satisfaction and the joy in the fulfillment of serving another, which is your purpose that is obligation not to yourself. I mean, it is to yourself and the way that you’re living out your purpose. But I think of it more of it is in the context of who I am supposed to be for another. That is where power just comes from. That is where you’re unstoppable, because it’s not about you. Like, you’re not, you’re not looking for any selfish gain. It’s, it’s literally, how can I serve, how can I be of help and, and to elevate my purpose above me and beyond me to surrender to this idea, almost almost that I don’t matter, but my purpose matters. And inside of that incredible sort of surrender is this extraordinary strength, this unshakable conviction, this unending power that can’t be weakened. It can’t be soft. And because it’s not about you, it’s simply about your obligation, you’re living in the obligation of fulfilling your purpose.

Hm that’s good. So that’s, that’s my second takeaway. You know, first takeaway courage is contagious. Second takeaway that my obligation is to my purpose. And then my third takeaway is something, again, sort of a derivative of something that Luvvie said, I guess so much energy from her. And she said, you know, I want my book to, to, to be, to give people permission, to be themselves, what a beautiful premise and an an, a beautiful aspiration and a beautiful intention that she would give us permission to be ourselves. And I agree with this, that the more that you can stand in the center of who you are, the more powerfully and deliberately and quickly, you will be able to move people. What do you have to be able to stand in the center of who you are to, to, to be comfortable allowing yourself, to be yourself, allowing yourself, to be seen for who you are, allowing your, your thoughts and your ideas to be heard for what they are being unashamed of, of hiding anything or adapting anything or tailoring any, anything you know, except to the extent by which it enables you to serve your purpose, but it is to just stand boldly in the center of who you were born to be.

And that’s what lights people up. That’s what cats sets the world on fire. That is what lovey I believe is saying when she’s saying professional troublemaker, because the world seems to favor the bolt. The world seems to favor the clear, the world seems to favor the risk takers. The, the, the people who are, are, are willing to put themselves out there and willing to seek, to say, and to set and to seek some dream or journey or destination. And so I think the confidence to do that and the power to do that comes in your ability to stand in the center of who you are and what your purpose is and who you were born to be. That’s all we got for this recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. Be bold, be courageous, be purpose-driven be obligated to become the best of what you are meant to be. Thanks for allowing us to encourage you on your journey. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brand.

Ep 152: Fear Fighting and Being Bold with Luvvie Ajayi Jones

Hey brand builder Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview. We are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming. From anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call. Hope to talk to you soon on with the show.

I love Luvvie Ajayi and you are, this is the second time we’ve had her back on the show.

You left the Jones out Rory!

That’s right. You’re Jones now, too. I can’t believe that I should have said that. Lovey Ajayi Jones. Now she’s a married woman. Yeah, coolest wedding ever, by the way. Pictures on social were awesome. But so Luvvie is a friend she’s a New York times bestselling author. Her first book was called I’m Judging You the Do Better Manual. She has a viral Ted talk that has I think like 5 million, more, more views than mine, which makes me also a little bit jealous.

5.6 million. I just checked today.

She is, co-authoring a book an anthology with Bernay Brown, which is pretty awesome and a whole bunch of awesome people. She has hundreds of thousands of people following her on social and through her blog. She’s, she’s been you know, one of the OG bloggers for like 15 years, she hosts a a fantastic podcast.

And the reason that we’re talking to her now is she has a new book out called professional troublemaker, the fear fighter manual, which is all about overcoming fear and living audaciously. And so when lovey was here, the first time we talked more about like the technical parts of how she built her audience over years I don’t know what episode number that is, but we’ll put a link to it in the show notes back to that first episode, but we didn’t really talk about, which is what we’re going to talk about today is the emotional side and, and the kind of like mental side of putting yourself out there and overcoming fear when it comes to building your personal brand. So anyways, Luvvie Ajayi Jones, welcome to the stage.

Thank you so much for having me back.

Yeah. Well, all right. So let’s talk about fight and fear, the fear fighter. And I have to say one of the things there’s so many things I love about you, that I admire about you. There’s a thing specifically that I think you have, like one of the things that you have that I think I wish I had more of was boldness. I think that that’s, that’s held me back in terms of, you know, my ability to grow on social to not be as pointy and sharp as I probably could. And, and I think part of the reason why is because I am scared of being judged, right? Like I am scared of what people will think and et cetera. And anyways, I think that anyone building a personal brand has some of that, except you don’t seem to, you just like, have such so much confidence and boldness, like, how do you do that? Where does that come from? Like, were you born with it? Or can I learn it?

I think it can be learned, but I think I was born with some of it. Some of it, I think the boldness of it all that I show up as, like I say, what other people are thinking, but they’re not to say, it’s not that I’m not afraid of being judged is that I realized that being judged is not the worst case scenario. It’s one of those things that is a foregone conclusion. If you aren’t going to be somebody of notes and create, and be somebody of impact, you will either repel people or also loved them like, or, or, or be loved deeply by them. There’s no middle ground to be able to be loved deeply by people means your whole character, how you will show up will also repel some people. Some people will judge you for it. Some people will not connect with you.

And that’s fine. I always think about the people who am deeply loved by the people who, when I write, when I speak, say you just took the thoughts up my head, put it on paper, thoughts. I didn’t even realize I had now. I think a lot of us have the tendency to swallow away what we want to do and how we want to show up because of that fear of judgment. We’re afraid of somebody not liking us or, Oh my gosh, I’m afraid of how somebody else is going to take this thing. And I think for me, growing up, I come from a family and a culture Nigerians are culturally loud and really just boisterous.

I was gonna say, when I introduced you, I was like, you’re my favorite Nigerian friend. But then I was like, unfortunately, I don’t, you might be my only Nigerian friend, And I was like, well, that sucks. That’s not good for you or for me. But anyways, I think you’ve, you definitely hold that title, but I need some more Nigerian friends. But anyways, you are my, you are my favorite.

I’m just the gateway Nigerian for you. Don’t worry.

I’m the gateway. Nigeria, you will find other Nigerians through me. But I think we’re very boisterous as a culture, like growing up, who I was, was never told to be less. I was given permission to be bold. I was a four year four, or five-year-old who, when I got in trouble, I would challenge my mother about it. I’d be like, I don’t think it was fair. I here’s the part that I think was not fair to me. And even though I’m sure I got on her nerves, she never did

I’m not going to let Jasper listen to this episode. Just so you know,

Jasper, let him have it. Let him have it.

He’s not gonna listen to this one.

I used to literally be like, mom, I’ll accept the punishment. I’ll take it. Whatever the punishment was. And then after the fact, I circle back with a note telling her my perspective, telling her why I didn’t think it was fair telling her why I think I was wrong. Okay. And it’s funny, like she never told me not to be that person. So I grew up not doubting that person that I was, I grew up not doubting my voice. And I think the power of that is that the boldness became less of a, I have to push myself to be this. It became my default. And one of the things that we can learn in being more bold is being pragmatic about the, our purpose and our I in, in what we’re doing in this world is you, you create a whole business on helping people solve a problem.

And you, one of the things that you pointed out that I do is I help solve the problem of powerlessness and the way I do it is through my boldness. I show up in a certain way and people get to see and say, if she can do it, maybe I can do something close too. Maybe I can also be myself. So in learning, the boldness honestly comes in just watching other people do it. Rory, like you were on, you were on a thing with the cohort that I had, where we talked about brand building and the last five minutes of you being on. I told my team afterwards, I was like, we have to put this as an episode of the podcast, because in that moment, it’s like, you borrowed boldness from me. How you actually showed up that day was way more bold than I’ve actually typically seen you.

And what that lets me know is, I guess we can borrow other people’s traits or the people that were around will infuse certain things into us, which lets me know that we can actually do it even when they’re not there. So like you came and gave such, it was so pointed. You’re typically very pointed, but on that day, your energy was different. It was so like strong. And so I’m just going to say this thing because I need you guys to understand why it’s important for you to stand in your purpose and you came with full fire and I’m just like, Rory’s typically very chill, very like, Hey, but you came with fire and I was like, okay, it can be done. And you do do it. It just shows up differently.

Yeah. I mean that, that really is true. I mean, I do feel like it is it is contagious and you, when you see someone else doing it, I mean, now let me just ask you this. Like, I’ve just been curious about asking you this and you don’t have to answer if we, if we, if we tread into water that you don’t feel comfortable about, but you are very outspoken about personal beliefs. You know, like you’ve got this X, you got expertise around helping people live audaciously and chase down fear. You also share a good bit of your political viewpoints and whatever socioeconomic or whatever you want to call it. Cultural, cultural beliefs. Do you, do you wrestle with the idea, first of all, I’m curious, do you actually wrestle and go, do you ever wonder, should I post this or does that, do you not even have that filter? Do you just go, Oh hell no. If I’m thinking it it’s coming out and if you do have a filter, how do you kind of determine what passes through the filter of going, like, does this serve my audience somehow? Does it, does it align with my business goals? Or like just how like, yeah. So is there a, is there a filter? And if there is tell us like what, what that is?

Yes. I have been blogging for 18 years at this point, half of my life. Wow. I started blogging in 2003. And when I started, there was no strategy behind it, but I think as I got bigger, as I finally called myself a writer, as my platform got bigger, I started understanding what was happening was kind of like the unfolding of purpose. And as my platform got bigger, I didn’t change my voice. What I did change, what changed was my level of responsibility in how I was showing up, like, right. Like when I had 300 followers, I could say whatever I wanted into the ether, it didn’t matter today. I can’t say whatever I want. Right. I, it has to be, it has to be way more thoughtful. So I do absolutely have a filter in how I say something. What I jump into as a cultural critic, as a side-eye source risk as a writer is shady Nigerian.

I think having the filter is good. Like it’s really good. You have to have a way to figure out when you’re not gonna just be impulsive and saying something just to say something I want to always make sure I’m not just speaking because I want my voice heard because I just feel like talking. So that’s why I have three questions that I ask myself whenever I want to say something. Especially when it feels like I’m going into territory, that could be contentious. And the first question is, do I mean it, like, am I actually saying this thing? Cause this is my belief. So too, can I defend it? If I am challenged on it? Can I actually back it up? Can I stand in it? Cause here’s the thing is the judge will be judged and then three, can I say thoughtfully?

So all of these are important because if I say yes to all three, I decided to say it, the third question of, can I say thoughtfully is really important because then it’s what makes it come out more thoughtful. It’s what makes it come out without, with as little as possible hate. Right? And I, and I, and I hope I never operate with hate, but I always try to figure out what is the way to say this that will land the best, or do I think it’s going to land the best now with my three filters, these three questions quantifying my decisions. It’s not with the guarantee that whatever I say will be like, well received. It’s just a risk mitigator. It is just a way for me to create some criteria to at least anything that doesn’t pass. I don’t say it out loud. If, if it’s not passing the three questions, I’m not saying it, but then if it does pass and I say it here’s the thing.

It can still go weird where somebody is like, Oh, I don’t like this thing you said, or, Oh my gosh, this is what I took away from it. And I think those are the moments where we have to understand that we are not here to appease everybody. It’s not our responsibility to make everybody comfortable or to make everybody feel good, because we were really nice that day. I think our responsibility is to do what we were put here for. And a lot of times that thing is going to run a foul of somebody because if it is purpose-driven, it’s pretty strong in some way, you know, they’re going to be people who are going to be like, I just don’t like what she just said, just because it’s Monday or Tuesday. But I think once my filter runs through, I go, that’s my obligation. My obligation is to myself, have I done my own job of making sure I’m showed up as best as possible if I have. Hey,

And so then how do you balance this? Right? The, so on the, on the one end, it’s like you’re unapologetic, you’re bold, you’re audacious. But then even, even you, you’re saying there is a level of discernment or filtering or you know, might even use the word diluted or like the, that you’re, you’re tempering, you’re tempering it, you’re tempering it some, some somehow. And you know, I guess I’m just trying to, I, I, I’m asking because I’m genuinely interested for me. Like sometimes I feel like I’m too tempered. Like I’m too safe. I’m too, I’m too comfortable. I’m too afraid to like stir up whatever. But then I think, you know, I also see much the danger and the risk of like, ah, yeah, go on too far or whatever. And, and so I, what I hear you saying is that basically, it’s just, you got to just stay centered in your purpose, what you believe that you were put here to say, and then just say that as cleanly and loudly as you can,

That’s it that’s really it. And honestly, it’s not even a case of temporary or sensory myself. It’s that the sermon is actually the right word for it. That is the right word for it. Getting the spirit of discernment because you know, when you’re young and you decide, Oh, I’m just going to just keep it real. Yeah. You’re probably going to be saying a lot of thoughtless things, but I think the older you grow, like again, the bigger the platform gets, you also have to wheel this power responsibility, like responsibility. So I, people who know me in real life and who like have known me since high school, we’ll read a piece I wrote and say, this sounds just like you still. So I always want to make sure that I am present in whatever I put forward. That even in my, as the a platform is getting bigger, nobody can say that doesn’t sound like lovey.

No, no, it’s always going to be me. I’m just being smarter about it. And that doesn’t mean I’m not cussing. That doesn’t mean I’m not showing any anger or strong opinions. I’m sure I’m still doing all of that. But I think I am a better thinker and a better writer and a better leader now than for sure, 10 years ago. And it’s not because I was censoring myself. It’s because this sermon, like the spirit of discernment is even better. I’m sharper about it. And I want you to not think too hard about going the other way. Like I see how you move, Roy, you straight you straight. Like you keep it nice and cool. But I think giving yourself permission to say what you truly believe is necessary, it’s necessary because you also have so many people who are watching you, who are listening to you and how you show up as amazing your words matter in a big way. So if I was to ever see you say something strong, I’ll know you actually meant it. And it would make me pay attention even more. I’d be like, wait a minute. Rory’s out here using caps. What?

Yeah. Well, it’s funny. Cause I saw you, you know, I made a post about my dad on his birthday about this story, about how I found my dad. And I noticed that you left a comment and a lot of people did it, and that was a very emotional, just like a very, a very real thing. So I, so let me ask you this. What are you afraid of right now? Or are you afraid like, like what’s going on right now that you are scared of?

You know, I have a fear of success.

We talked about fear of failure all the time. I think fear of success is just as real. And it’s part of the reason why I self-sabotage sometimes by procrastinating, I figured that out in therapy when my therapist was like, you’re PR, cause it was last year actually, when I was on the hook for finishing my book and I’d go into sessions and she blocked, so where are you with it? How’s it going? I’ll be like, yeah, about that. I didn’t really write anything this week. And one session she asked me, she was like, so why do you think you didn’t write anything this weekend? I was like, I don’t know. I didn’t have time. I was just sitting on the couch and she was like, could this be a form of self-sabotage? And I was like, what do you mean? She was like, what are you afraid of with this book that is making you stall on it? And I think I was afraid of like, what if the book did what I think it will do? Like what if it does somehow help a billion people conquer fear? Like how does that change my life? Do I, how does that level up change? What I what’s around me? Yeah. Fear of fear of success is real.

And so you’re saying that, you know, let’s, let’s say the book sells a million copies that forces you to live a different in a different way because your life at that level looks different than the way it does now. And that is, that is uncertain and that escape, it was scary.

Yeah. I have to hire more people and get it’s just, it’s like, are we, it’s the fear of like, am I equipped for the next level? Yeah.

And so how do you overcome that? Then?

When I say it out loud as a starting point, acknowledge it. I talked to people like you who know what level of look like I basically say and ground myself with some affirmations, that’s like, whatever you need, you got it. And I just ride the wave and I try to figure out the moments when I’m self-sabotaging, when I’m trying to pull myself back I talked to friends and yeah, I do all of that. It’s a, it’s a constant ritual of like, you got this, you got this. If you do have to hire more people, you got this, like, it’ll be fine. And again, like talking to and having, you know, a lot of friends who are really successful also trade war stories and say, Oh, I’ve been there. And because a lot of people who have come before us have already done this, they basically give you the map on how to navigate it. So I’m definitely leaning into my community. And my friends to just tell me what I need to do to get ready for a massive book coming out. Like you’ve been in the immense help. I’ve been talking to Glenn and Doyle, you know, talk to chase Jarvis and it’s just, just getting ready.

Well, I think so who did you write this book for? Okay. So taking it specifically back back to this book and you go, you know, the book’s called professional trouble troublemaker again, but the fear fighter manuals, the subtitle, which I just love. How, like, who is it targeted at? Who’s it, who’s it aimed at?

I wrote this book for me. I feel like this book was, was was something that I created for me because I like to create work that I need, you know, when I was afraid to call myself.

Yeah. See, like, I don’t think of you as being scared. So this is just the person you once were.

This is the person that I once where was, is can sometimes lean into some times. Like, I think, you know, we don’t just become bolded state both 24 seven. Right. We will have moments where we’ll go. Hmm. Should I think that big? Or should I actually say that thing? You will still have your moments of fear here. And their fear is not always about the big time. I think even in the small moments where you are afraid to say something that might feel scary. And I think I honestly wrote this book for me because I think about how 10 years ago, I was afraid to call myself a writer. I think about, you know, turning down my Ted talk twice because I didn’t think I was ready for it. I think about shoot now being afraid of what the level up looks like. You know, it’s a constant reminder.

And I think the best things that we do is when we create something that we need when we fill our own need. Because when we do that, we fill somebody else’s need. And I think for me, this is a book that I wish I had even last year when the pandemic happened and I’m sitting in my house like, Oh my gosh, what’s, what’s the world gonna look like? And I remember feeling convicted to be like finished this book because this book is what you need right now. So I think about people like me, like whether or not you’re bold or not, you know, people who have big dreams and who want to create impact in the world whose lives like their ideal lives, aren’t going to call for them to do or think bigger than they’re currently doing and who are going to need to be loaned courage from time to time.

So that’s why I really wrote this book for it. It’s the dreamers or the people who are still afraid to become the dreamers, the very pragmatic foot on the ground. Folks who were just like, you know what, I’m just going to do this one thing that feels easy, do it just really well. But what happens when people are given permission? Not just told they can be bold, not just told they can dream audaciously or speak the truth, but like told I need you to, I need you to speak the, I need you to dream audaciously. I need you to get a Nigerian friend. Okay. I need you to build the squad. You know? So I want my book to be permissioned for people. The permission they might not ever be given to be themselves to be too much, you know, to be too soft, if that’s who they are to be too hard, if that’s who they are. So it’s the permission.

And, and what about like lightened? You really like, do you, are you afraid of offending people?

Sometimes. Sometimes. And yeah, like there’s a, there’s a whole chapter in my book called failed loudly where I talk about my biggest public fail in how it knocked me off my square for a year, because something, I said offended thousands of people and how I recovered from it. But I realized that, and it actually also taught me the lesson of, it’s less about what you say and it’s more about people also projecting themselves onto you and it’s something you can’t control. That’s the part that’s frustrating, right? That’s the part that scares people. It’s like, how do I control it? How do I make sure nobody ever gets mad at me? And I was like, you can’t, you can say the sky is blue. And somebody, somebody somewhere would disagree and say, I’m offended. That’s actually red. And that’s why we cannot be tied strictly to the landing of everything that we say.

We can’t be tied strictly to other people’s thoughts and ideas of us, because it will move us away from our purpose. It’s why you have to know what your compass is. You gotta know what your center is and stand in it because people will want to move you off it. And it’s going to be up to you to kind of drill in and say, okay, I am growing as a person, but this is what I’m supposed to be doing. Like I’m supposed to becoming to help people think critically, I’m supposed to help people feel joy. And I’m supposed to basically compel them to leave the world better than they found it. And in that whole purpose driven life, I will be the villain. In some people’s stories. I will burn some bridges, but if at the end of it all, I actually left this world better than I found it. If I actually stood in my purpose and help people feel more powerful. If somebody somewhere can say, I heard you speak, or I read your book and it changed my life, then I’ve done my job.

I love it. I love it. Loving where she wants people to go. If they want to learn about professional troublemaker and learn about you and more like more of what you’re up to,

Yes, people can go to professional troublemaker, book.com. Pre-Order the book come to my book tour. I’m in conversation with seven people who I think are also living purpose driven lives that are huge and audacious and they can find me all over social media. I am at lovey L U V V I E one word on all platforms. Okay. I got the one screen name.

Okay. The Oprah level, you got lovey lovey.

That’s all you need to know. BBI

E is Luvvie. And I, you know, I really think that that’s interesting, you know, this term earlier that you can, that you loan people courage. And I think that’s what this book does. And I think that’s what you do. And you know, to that point of that last conversation where you had me in front of your audience is that you do give permission to people. And, and I think it is contagious and it’s like you loan you loan people courage. So if you’re listening and you don’t have courage and you need to borrow some courage, get some of Luvvie in a professional troublemaker, the fear fighter manual. Thank you for giving us permission to be more bold and to to be more courageous, lovey it’s, it’s really, it’s really fun and inspiring to watch.

Thank you so much for always sharing space with me, Roy, like you you’ve changed the game a little bit from you, Rory, you chase, the guy said something the other day. And I was like, that feels like a Rory fading quote. I was like, that sounds very Rory Vaden. I like it. Let’s keep it like,

That’s good. I love it. Well, we wish you the best, my friend. And we’ll look forward to staying tuned. Yes, indeed.

Ep 117: Dynamic Speaking and Scaling Joy with Dan Thurmon | Recap Episode

Hey, welcome to the recap edition of the influential personal brand podcasts, Rory Vaden, coming to you. So low, a recap in this Epic interview with Dan Thurman and I’m covered for AIG to on this one just by myself. But you know, I’ve known Dan for so long. It’s, it’s fun to get to go back and listen to this and kind of analyze and break it down and give you my top three highlights. And there was so much going on in this interview. You know, we released these, these podcasts also on our YouTube channel. It’s actually not on the Rory Vaden YouTube channel. It’s on the brand builders group, YouTube channel and,

And you know, usually some people like to watch cause you see the facial expressions, but this one was, was crazy because there were a lot of visual components of it, which, you know, we tried to talk out for you for you visually, but anyways, so to dive in to the top three takeaways. So first of all, I thought the mindset to pivot and, and these were three mindsets that were my big takeaways from Dan and from that interview. And, and the first mindset is the mindset that it takes to pivot. And I loved the actual content that he was sharing, which is from his, his actual content that he, he teaches in his virtual keynotes, this idea that when things become uncertain, we can falsely feel uncertain about everything. And it’s like, when there’s change, not everything is changing. There’s a couple of things that are changing, but, but we sort of have this, if we’re not careful, we have this mental mushroom that we allow ourselves to do, right?

It’s if you’re not dissed, if you don’t have a disciplined mind, if you allow your mind to just run, it’ll run towards the negative it’ll it’ll, it will become just over-exaggerated and, and consumed with all of the, the, the negative possible outcomes. And I remember talking about this with Lewis Howes one time when I was interviewed on his podcast, actually the most recent time I was, I was on there and we were talking about how with successful people, there’s still always like this fear, no matter how successful you get, there’s like this fear that you’ll not just that you’ll fail, but that somehow you’ll fail so much that you’ll just become like homeless living on the street is like this, this deep rooted insecurity that drives someone to be so successful is always there. And it can get so out of control that like you just, when something goes wrong or doesn’t work out or you don’t get number one, or you’re not perfect your mind immediately freaked out and was like, Oh my gosh, I’m going to end up homeless.

Right? And it’s like, you’re so far away from that. Even though, even though things might be changing and you, you might not be winning or you’re just dealing with uncertainty. And, and I thought that was super powerful that, you know, Dan was reminding us that even though you’re uncertain about some things, you don’t have to be uncertain about everything and you can have faith in your, in yourself. And, and you can have faith in your ability that your entire life you’ve had to learn how to operate a new environment, your entire life. You’d ha you’ve had to learn new ideas and new skills and, you know, maybe work in new jobs or a new markets or verticals or industries, and you’ve been able to figure it out. So why do we become so scared and overwhelmed and frightened and stressed and anxious. When we face a little bit of change in our life, knowing that our entire life up to this point, it has been embracing change and learning new things.

We have the ability and the knowledge to figure it out. And if you can just embrace that, you’ll be able to pivot faster. And that’s going to put you in a, a much better position. So that I think was the first thing for me, was the mindset to pivot and, and what that looks like. The second mindset was, is really the mindset to up-level. And this one was more watching. It wasn’t so much what Dan said, like it wasn’t in the content. It wasn’t when he was like teaching his content, it was just kind of watching and processing his demeanor and looking at how quickly, you know, this is someone who’s made a career speaking in front of live audiences, and that’s like been the primary way that he’s made money. And that business model of the live keynote speaker has been disrupted. I mean, it’s been more than disrupted.

It’s been killed. It has evaporated. It has vanished. It, it went from, this is what I knew in my whole life to it disappeared overnight. So as much as like any business model the, the model of live keynote speaking in the physical sense in, in front of live audiences disappeared overnight. There’s no events, there’s no gatherings worldwide. It has shut down. Travel has virtually shut down. And so here you have somebody Dan, that that’s been his primary business, which, you know, we understand, we appreciate it. It’s, it’s always been a huge part of our business. But it’s actually, it’s become less and less over the years. It’s just been fewer engagements at higher fees, but still a smaller total of our proportionate revenue, because we’ve moved into more of building, you know, building a real business kind of outside of, of just being on stage speaking.

But that’s a, that’s a real scary thing. And what did he do? What has he done? He immediately turned to going, all right, I’m going to go virtual, but I’m not just going to do virtual presentations. I’m going to figure out a way to Uplevel the virtual experience. And he’s got a five camera shoot, three sets going on in his house with this ability to create this variation of, you know, the types of just kind of the type of energy in which he’s presenting with. And of course, if you watch, if you actually watch this video of the interview on our YouTube channel, you’ll get to just see. I mean, it’s, it’s worth going to look, even if you don’t watch the whole thing, but just kind of fast forward and see how this set changes. And it’s amazing. He just like walks out of the screen and into another, another screen, it looks like he was walking into a new room, different camera angles.

And it’s, it’s a simple bit of technology, but instead of being paralyzed and terrified and, and, you know, just scared, which would have been understandable, it is understandable. A lot of, a lot of speakers are still reeling with trying to figure out what the heck they’re going to do. He just said, how can I, how can I go virtual? And how can I, up-level the experience? How can I take this performance and this production to another level which people haven’t seen. And so we quickly did that. And, and so the mindset there, which he also did talk about is to go respond to uncertainty with new education, with new personal development, with new growth of, of, you know, he didn’t, he didn’t have all that technology before. He didn’t know how to do all that. He figured it out because he was leaning into the change and going great.

I’m going to, I’m going to use this opportunity for change and challenge and uncertainty to learn something new and, and to, and to prove that I have faith and confidence in myself, that I’ll be able to figure it out by investing and, and, and growing and learning and saying, you know what, there’s a way to learn how to do this and that. I mean, gosh, that is why I think brand builders, part of why we’re growing so much is because people are realizing that online. I have to be able to do business online. There’s, there’s, there’s no other way right now to really be steadily growing your business. And if you don’t have those skills, if you don’t have that knowledge, if you don’t know how to write copy, if you don’t know how to build funnels, if you don’t know what a words should be on a webpage, if you don’t know how to run a or to run Facebook ads, or if you don’t know how to do webinars, if you don’t know how to create content, if you don’t know how to manage social media, if you don’t have systems for training a staff to like, keep up with all this content production, you need to get going and you need to get going fast, sweetheart, like you’re, you need to get on it.

And I think, you know, God just had his hand on us in terms of guiding our life to be sitting in a place to provide this education to people in such a systematic way. And maybe that’s, you know, if that’s you, then, Hey, you should check out brand builders. We do it as good. If not better than anyone in the world, I really believe leave that. But maybe it’s not your personal brand. Maybe it’s some other part of your business that you need to learn. The point is is, and what I took away from Dan, both in what he said, and what he meant is that you respond to uncertainty with personal growth, with personal development, with education, with learning, with knowledge to go, all right, I’m going to adapt. I’m going to grow. And that’s not what most people do. I mean, let’s be honest.

Most of us want to hang onto the old days, rather sit around and commiserate about how things used to be and about how I wish it was the way it was and how, how hard it is been on me versus going, I’m going to educate, I’m going to indoctrinate. I’m going to learn. I’m going to develop. I am going to grow. And knowing that as I do that, as I push myself to, to develop and to grow and to learn out of that will come confidence and ability in the face of uncertainty, which of course is true because there’s always opportunity. Every problem creates new opportunity. And anyways, I just thought Dan modeled it. And you know, he talked about it and totally up-leveled his game to the point where, when I put on my virtual keynote speaker had I’m going crap. Like, you know, he, he sat in a new bar for what that looks like and, and going, man, we need it.

We need to figure it out. We got to find ways to up our production and, and up the exp up the virtual experience for our virtual keynotes. And so anyways, what are you doing, doing to learn? How are you growing your knowledge? How are you leaning in to change and uncertainty and instability with more education and more relevant education? And that was my, my second takeaway is, is the mindset to, to Uplevel. So that’s different from the mindset to pivot and just be safe is then adding onto it. Another layer, which is, which is the mindset to, and then for my third takeaway, I’m actually, you know, I wrote this down, it’s the mindset to serve the mind set, to serve. And this was the money line. Like this was the, this was the, the, the focal point point for me of the entire interview. And he said, yes, I can scale giving and helping on a global level. That is the type of success. I don’t even have to monetize.

Think about that for a second. If I could make worldwide impact, that is enough significance and value in my life that I wouldn’t even have to monetize it. And so that’s why he’s doing it. You got this 50 year old guy on Tik TOK going viral because he’s not, he’s not trying to figure out how do I suck the most money out of my audience. He’s figuring out what can I do that would give value to them? What would entertain them? What would educate them? What would encourage them? What would inspire them? What would teach them? What would, what would bring them a bright spot in their day, in a difficult time? And we say it, we talk about it. We say things like, you never feel fear when the mission to serve is clear. But, but when you look at people like Dan, they’re living it, they’re doing it.

And it’s, I think it’s like how many ultra performers do you have to hear? Talk about that extreme level of commitment to service before you really believe and adapt and buy into the idea that I’m going to serve my audience. Like that is what I’m trying to do. I will let the money follow. I will trust that the money will follow. I’ll have faith that the money will follow. But what I’m going to focus on is not the money. I’m going to focus on the impact. I’m going to focus on the service. I’m going to focus on making a difference. I’m going to focus on delivering value to people that I’m not even paid for. And, and once that, once that switch flips, you can’t be stopped, right? Like once, once that heart change really happens, like once that, that, that, that, that flip, that, that evolution wants that maturity.

Once, once that commitment happens, you can’t be stopped because you’re saying it’s not about the money. It’s not about the followers. It’s about making a difference and you can turn on your camera and reach across the globe in one button, right? Like it’s never been easier. So if you really want to make an impact, prove it, turn on the microphone, turn on the camera, pull up Canva and make a post type of caption. But like, if that’s what it’s about, do it make an impact and, and trust and know that the money’s going to follow and look, you know, Dan’s one of the highest paid speakers in the world. And, and he doesn’t know what life is going to look like in a post COVID area. That’s all still like sorting itself out. But you see him living that, that commitment to service in the midst of uncertainty and, you know, and you watch it from outside and you go, of course, he’s gonna win.

He’s focused on how can he, up-level the experience for his customers? How can he pivot quickly? How can he make a difference? Eventually the money’s going to follow that. And that is why we say we serve mission-driven messengers. It’s not that we don’t care about money. We do care about money. We, we we’re good at making money. We’re we, we, we consider it important, but it’s about the impact in the mission first. And, and trusting that if I serve enough people for a long enough time, I will eventually make money. If I serve enough people for a long enough time, there’s no way I don’t end up making money. But when all I focus on is money, it’s hard to, I’m not focused on service. And so when the money’s not there right away, I give up because it’s not fair today. And tomorrow and next week, and next month and six months, and maybe in a year, maybe even two years, and you go, I’ve been doing this for two years.

I’m not making money. Yeah. Eventually your going to burn out your going to give up, compare that to the person going I’m just here to serve. I’m just here to give value. I’m here to Uplevel the contribution I’m making to the world. And I can’t be stopped because there’s no measurement. That’s going to slow me down. Like I’m only going to make more impact. I’m only going to reach more people, whether it’s one or 1 million or 100 million, I know I’m going to, I’m going to naturally reach more and more people. And I I’m, I know the money is going to show up in some form or fashion, and that’s a switch that you need to flip. And, and it’s, it’s something that you have to flip regularly. It’s, it’s kinda, you know, it’s like what we talk about in the take the stairs book, success is never owned.

Success is rented and the rent is due every day. And the commitment to serve is never owned. It is rented and the rent is due every day. You have to wake up every single day and make that conscious decision that I’m putting impact first. And I’m all in, on making impact. And I’m going to trust that somehow some way, if I’m all in, on providing the best level of service and making the biggest difference, I can, I’m all in on that. And I’m all in on having the faith and the trust and the confidence of knowing it will eventually work out.

And that is how it is. That is always how it is. You just got to wake up and remind yourself of that every day, whether there’s one person watching or 1 million or 100 million, but if you can be making an impact, that’s something that it’s like, you don’t even have to monetize, but you can, and you will. And we’re going to show you how so thank you for hanging around here. Hope you enjoyed the interview with Dan. I loved it. You had listened to it yet. Go back and listen to it and just see if you can catch the mindset of what it takes to pivot to up level and to surf. We’ll catch you next time. [inaudible].

Ep 116: Dynamic Speaking and Scaling Joy with Dan Thurmon

Rory Vaden here. Thank you so much for tuning in to listen to this interview. We are so excited to bring you this information and wanted to let you know that, Hey, there’s no sales pitch coming. From anything that we do with this is all our value add to you and the community. However, if you are somebody who is looking for specific strategies on how to build and monetize your personal brand, we would love to talk to you and we offer a free call to everyone that’s interested in getting to know us and is willing to give us a chance to get to know them and share a little bit about what we do. So if you’re interested in taking us up on a free strategy call, you can do that at brand builders, group.com/summit. Call brand builders, group.com/summit. Call, hope to talk to you soon on with the show. Dan Thurman is one of the reasons why I almost gave up my career as a keynote speaker. He is extraordinary.

I mean he provides amazing content you know, just kind of like real, true thought leadership, but in the most acrobatic and entertaining way. And I use the word acrobatic because he does backflips. He juggles, he throws knives. He can do handstands on podiums, like and I know that most of you are listening to this, but if you don’t know this, we record all of these episodes as videos and we put them also on our YouTube channel. And you know, I don’t know for sure, but like, there’s probably going to be some elements because Dan is so visual that you, you may hear us reference and usual bit too to the visual and you might go check out our YouTube channel and you know, we’ll post we’ll post a link to that. But so Dan is incredible. I mean, he is a hall of fame speaker.

He’s also a former president of the national speakers association. I’ve known him for years. Although I wouldn’t say we’ve been like super close friends. We have the same friends that we’re super close to, and it’s not for any other reason than we just both been out there running a gun. And, but I mean, listen to his client list. Okay. So when I talk about the kind of work that he’s doing and the, the kind of companies that, that he is speaking to it’s extraordinary. So you’re talking about the Coca-Cola’s of the world bank of America, Proctor and gamble, Marriott Johnson and Johnson, Walmart crafts, state farm Honeywell. I mean, these are some of the world’s biggest and brightest companies that have brought him in to speak. The reason, not the only reason, but one of the reasons that I invited Dan to be here is because he has been around in the speaking world as a very successful speaker for a long time.

I mean, he was inducted into the hall of fame almost 10 years ago. So and he has also, you know, he spoke on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. So he’s been around a long time, but he’s doing some incredibly innovative things. So he’s checks like all the kind of like classic marks, you know, he’s got a great book called off balance on purpose, but he’s doing some things. So first of all, on Tik talk, him and his teenage daughter, Maggie are like tick tock celebrities. They have multiple videos that have been viewed more than 30 million times. Their Tik TOK channel has over a million subscribers. And so it’s so innovative. And then one of the other things that he’s doing is the way that he has pivoted to his virtual live stream events is just extraordinary. And so we’re going to, we’re going to just talk about how to stay relevant in a kind of like COVID world as a speaker and all, all things. How do you get to be Dan Thurman except, you know, we’re not going to do pushup and handstand tutorials, I don’t think, but anyways, welcome to the show, Dan, glad to have you,

What an intro of Rory that is so amazing for your compliments. One quick update because things change quick, you know, that Maggie’s following on Tik TOK is now over 3 million. And so yeah, so things just keep growing and growing, man. It’s, it’s a lot of fun though.

I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s really crazy. Like, you know, and I’m serious about that. Like the first time I saw you keynote, I was like, why would someone hire me when they could hire this guy? It was like you know, I have that thought every week, not very often, but every once in a while I have that thought and I was just like, you know, that was it. And then, and then just seeing you guys crush it on social media is kind of the same thing. And I mean, you’re an entertainer. I think there’s a, there’s a big part of your background, right? Like you just been in entertainment, but so let’s talk about tech talk for a second. Since we can kind of dive in, what the heck, like, how do you get 3 million followers? Like why, what are you doing? Like, what is your strategy? Because most speakers, I think, a what a waste of time, and you guys are just crushing it. So like, what’s your mindset there a little over a year,

Year ago, like most people never heard of Tik TOK, but Maggie had. And so she got involved on the platform. She had a good background and foundation because for a year she had been in high school, a brand influencer and advocate for Hollister. She was hired on a team and a project to promote endorse, launched new products and things. They, they really educated her in many ways about social media and Instagram. It was really Instagram based on that platform in terms of how to work for for Hollister that ran its course and the program ended, but she already was quite marketing savvy, had grown her Instagram following a good bit and heard about Tik TOK got involved in, tic-tac had a couple of her videos that did well. And then she had a, she asked me, dad, do you want to do a dance together?

We did this dance that to a Fergie song that just went completely bonkers. We went to the gym to play racquetball. And by the time we got out of that session, it had over 300,000 likes or something stupid like that. And then it just kept going and going and going that elevated Maggie’s platform. And, and she continued to do her own thing, but the things that we did together, what was interesting is it became very much about our relationship. We have a very genuine, loving natural relationship which filled this need in Tik TOK. A lot of people responded saying, I wish I had that in my family. I wish my dad would do these kinds of things with me. And so in a very careful way, we’ve, we’ve managed her brand to she’s now in college, a freshman in college and envisions this as her career. Obviously I’m not going to be a part of that journey for her whole life. And so we we’ve grown the dad daughter stuff in dance and comedy. And of course the variety of skills that we do with juggling and acrobatics and unicycling and silks, and, and kind of found different ways to introduce all these skills.

And very quickly, I just have to say, like, you know, it’s a little bit frustrating that you like God was dishing out talents. And I think there was like a glitch in the system and just like dumped. I mean, you guys are incredible, like the dancing, the acrobatics, the juggling, I mean, that’s really, it’s really, it’s entertaining. It’s really entertainment, entertainment in the most pure sense.

It’s, it’s so fun. And it’s a part of who I am. It’s just by my language of my love languages, kinesthetic movement. I love to just do things, learn things, develop skills, always have. That’s kind of how I channeled my hyperactive energy. And now you and I are a lot, a lot the same. But as she got closer to college, what we began to do is, you know, obviously she’s branching out more with her own videos and her own skills. And, and now it’s probably like 90 10, like where she’s doing Mo mostly her content I’m involved in our channel here and there. We had a trip to LA last week to see some other influencers. And so we did some more together during that. I have my own tech talk where I only have like a half a million followers on mine, but but, but it’s, but I’m still thinking about Tik TOK relative to my brand, because this is gen Z. This is that next level audience. And what I’ve sort of learned is that they, they are very receptive to what I have to teach and to the way that I can teach it, it’s just a different vibe and a different connection. So I’ve been very careful and very fascinated by how I could develop that relationship, that relationship with a new, a new generation all over the world. And it’s extraordinary to wrap your mind around.

Yeah. So like talking about, thinking about the generations for a second, you know, we had Jason Dorsey on here just a few, a few episodes ago, talking about generation Z and all of their research and stuff, you know, on the one hand people kind of go, you know, how do you make money from tech talk other than like brand deals and stuff. But if you’re going to be like a speaker or an author or a, or a personal brand, and do you have some type of a monetization strategy or is it more of like, this is street credibility? Or is it more of like, these people one day will be the book buyers and the decision makers. And so I want to connect with them or do you just, or is it just like, I’m just there because it’s fun. And I think it’s fun to do, like, how do you approach that?

So I’m not trying to monetize it in any direct way. Although I have had speaking engagements that came in through Tik TOK or coaching relationships that started because people found me on Tik TOK, people who find me on Tik TOK, find me, go to my LinkedIn and see my business side. So, so it’s definitely feeding that pipeline. But so much of it, Rory is I know that something great is happening as a result because it’s pure and it’s, and it’s real. And, but my intention is only to give and to help. And if I can scale giving and helping and filling a need on this level, you know, that’s a type of success. I don’t even have to monetize. I would be, it would be so satisfying and wonderful to know that I, that I could contribute, especially now to a world where so many kids are facing depression and bullying and, and all this frustration.

And I’ve been challenged at early early ages to feel like they’ve got to have it all together when really they could, they don’t and they shouldn’t, and they can just be themselves and find themselves and they need joy. They need, they need, as Maggie’s tagline to her whole brand is go make someone smile, literally just go make someone smile. So there’s a lot of ways that you can make someone smile. And the best smile that we can have is when we appreciate ourselves and who we are. And so that’s really my intention with it is that yes, these will be perhaps future clients. It’s nice to have that brand elevated. It’s good to get recognized in Starbucks and in, by Jenny’s eaters, which, which happens regularly now. And, and it’s pretty bizarre cause it, it doesn’t matter where you are, right. It’s not geographic, it’s, it’s a, it’s a bigger type of celebrity, which I’m obviously not accustomed to, as a keynote speaker, I’m accustomed to going into the room. Nobody knows who you are. Right. Right. And then, and then when you’re done, you, everybody knows who you are and you get that like temporary celebrity. And then you can go back to the airport and blend in again and be completely anonymous. So it’s not that I’m super famous. I’m really not, but it’s, but it’s been fun to, to, you know, get recognized here and there.

Yeah. That’s amazing. I mean, I think I don’t want to skip over what you said there about, if you could just scale giving and helping at this kind of a magnitude, this sort of a level, that’s a success that you don’t have to monetize. And I feel like that mindset alone is the thing that ultimately is the cause and the source of the people who break through the wall, what we call breaking through the wall and sustain longterm, regardless of its Tik TOK or Instagram or email marketing or speaking or writing books. And just to like, hear you say that, you know, I want to ask you about some other stuff, but I don’t want to skip over that because that, that is such a big, a big moment. And that’ll probably be one of the biggest things that I take away from this, which I, I love,

It’s easy to say it’s, and we’ve always said that, that we’re in the business of giving and helping and serving, but, but, but really a huge part of our brain is always trying to work the revenue and work the business and grow the business and, and measure ourselves and compare ourselves to our competition by what we’re doing and how busy we are and how much we’re making. And so for me, the challenge of COVID was, you know, obviously the dates fell off the calendar and when you identify yourself as a speaker, who’s out there doing live engagements and there certainly are no, there’s no events, there’s no engagements, there’s no stages. There’s no audiences. Now we’re faced with the question, well, who are you now at? Or who are you really? And so very, very early on the shift became, I’m not sure how much money we’re going to make this year.

Yes, we’re going to, we’re going to pivot. We’re going to do our thing. We’re going to serve our clients. We’re going to grow our business, but let’s change that measurement to how many people can we help this year, because one, thing’s for sure in the supply and demand world point that the demand for our help and our services has never been higher. People need it more than ever. So if, even if it’s just giving it away, that’s what I want to do because I think it’d be interesting if we got hall of fame awards for the biggest impact that we made in the world. I pray, I certainly wouldn’t get one of those. But I I’d love to.

Yeah. And that’s, that’s such a great perspective. And social media gives you that ability to like, if you really want to change lives, like if it really has nothing to do with money, like turn on your camera and talk to the camera and change lives. Like there’s never been an easier way to, to, to access people. So I want to come back to the technical a little bit. What are you doing with reels? So now Instagram has released the reels functionality, which is basically like their answer or competitor of Tik talk, you know? Are you reposting the same videos to reels? Are you not yet paying attention to reels or like what’s yeah. What’s, what’s going on there.

Yeah. It’s not something on my radar right now. I I’m aware that it’s happening, but, but Maggie has I think it kind of told me that her generation kind of thinks it’s it’s not there yet in terms of what it could do and the capabilities you know, so, so that’s not something we’re doing. We are posting on Instagram and we’re posting on, IETV sort of my weekly coaching videos, which get a very modest impression. I think it’s, it’s nothing like the scalability of tick-tock for me. But I’d be very curious to know more.

What is your just for the purpose, what’s your Tik TOK handle and Maggie’s, do you mind throwing that out so that people,

So Maggie’s is Maggie Thurman, T H U R M O N. So just at M a G, G I E T H U R M O N. And and my, my ticket Tik TOK handle is actually Maggie’s dad one, two, three. So, so this, and this was a very early decision because I didn’t. So for me, what was happening with tick-tock was so special as a father and in our relationship. And I didn’t want to, in any way feel like I was trying to, you know, chase her clout and, and trade off of that in my own business. So I’m just, Maggie’s dad one, two, three, which is kind of funny. And it sticks because even though now I’m doing more of my own content on my channel, that origin story is still really special to both of us. But you know, all along, I really saw that as more our thing than my thing.

I love that that is really, really, really cool. So yeah. Okay, great. So we’ll put links to that. Maggie, Maggie Thurman at Maggie’s dad, one, two, three. So I love that. So you mentioned COVID here a while ago and the pivots, and I think most people are pretty aware of this. I mean, if for those of us that earned a large percentage of our ordinary income from getting on an airplane, flying to an event, being in front of hundreds of thousands of people coming in as a stranger, as you say, you know, delivering this whatever 60 or 90 minute performance slash teaching, and then COVID happens. And all of those events disappear. I mean, like literally all of them disappeared and almost literally overnight, they were gone. What so separate of this tick talk, social media thing, you also have done some amazing pivots with your, you know, what let’s call it, your corporate brand or your classic brand, or your classic message even down to the technology and the studio that you’re using. And again for you listening, you’re not going to have the benefit of this, but can I ask you to do a virtual tour for, so the people watching the video can literally see what you’re about to change rooms. Like, like just give us the, the tumor, if you, because when we jumped on here, you like stood up and walked to a different room and like the whole thing changed. So can you just give us like a virtual tour of your studio so people that can watch the video can see what’s happening here?

Absolutely. Okay. So the first thing to understand is my brand, which is that elevated experience. People hire me because they want more than just a speaker. They want mind, body, and spirit kind of all in connection. And my method of teaching is very physical, very, very visual. And so we realized early, we wanted a space where we could do that very well. So we have three different sets I’m currently sitting in the library, which is where we really get into that heart connection. More that spiritual connection, driving stories, home, closing points, that type of thing. But then we needed a physical space, which is right over here. So stepping just to my right, this is the stage, this is our action room.

Okay. And for those of you that aren’t seeing this, I have just, he stood up out of his chair, walked, I don’t know, three feet to the right. And the entire screen changed. And we went from looking at a library to now we’re still on a zoom meeting, but now I’m seeing a completely different backdrop with a podium and a teaching screen.

Right. So, so for example, you see the podium and you see my, my teaching screen. And you mentioned the book off balance on purpose. So in many ways I’ve been preparing for this moment this year and teaching in my contents, very, very congruent because we’re more off-balance than ever before. Moving through these changes with uncertainty, just kind of unfolding and forth in front of us for the foreseeable future. And so one of the ways I teach that here, I’m moving to the lectern is you know, this is like our foundations, which all of our foundations, how we work, we teach how we parent, how we eat, how we shop, all of it’s been rocked. And so the question is, how do you position yourself on top of uncertainty? Okay, here we go.

Going for it. This is crazy. He is vertical, complete handstand on top of a podium. This is so corroborate.

You got to see us. I’m not, I’m not balanced. I’m balancing, I’m making constant adjustments and corrections. And after all that effort, I’m still right here. So we just cut to a second camera, but here’s the message balance. Isn’t what you get balance is what you do this year is about developing the skills to make those adjustments in real time, even though your foundations are rocked and unstable, which you can do, if you bring a greater sense of purpose to the moment that you’re in and manage and use these skills, which we teach to help you leverage the positive aspects of uncertainty in order to, in order to change and in order to grow. So that’s,

That’s awesome. So, so this is where, okay, so hold on. I want you to, I gotta interrupt you because I want everyone to know what just happened. So he just, first of all, the last angle we were looking at, you were doing a handstand on a podium and there was two camps. There were two different camera angles on that shot. So it was the second setup, like a second stage with two different camera angles. And now you’re just walked another, like, I don’t know, three feet to a different direction. And now you’re in a different, what, what do you call this set? Okay.

This is our classroom. This is really where our we teach and break down ideas. So if you think of mind, body, and spirit, so this is where we would really focus on your mind and how we teach you ideas, but then break them down into strategies. Like for example, on this Flipboard here we talk about this is actually a different work for a client that we we’ve been working on right now. But let me move to one of our recent phases. We can interact with this and we can artfully go through different content in different phases. One of the things we talk about quite frequently is this spectrum of certainty. Like I talk about, you know, managing the positive aspects of uncertainty, which you can do because really all you ever get is some certainty. You know,

Just again for everyone that’s listening. So now he’s in his teaching classroom set and there’s another camera angle. So it just shifted. So you’ve got two camera angles here going,

And, and what, what I want you to know is that even with the, the other set, you had the low angle where I went into the handstand, we switched to a different camera here, we have this forward camera, and then we have the second camera, which is how you, where you see me, right. And it’s also a closer shot, a more personal shot. The point is, it’s not extraneous, everything’s intentional. And if you have different cameras, but they’re not for specific reasons, then it’s really the same as pacing a stage without any purpose. And so everything has to be well thought out and used in a strategic way. And so, okay.

So one other, sorry, real quick, before you go into the spectrum of certainty, because I think both your content is relevant to us, as well as how you’re delivering the content is super relevant. So I apologize for the interruptions, but like, are you looking at, do you have tally lights, like a camera lights that come on to tell you where to look or does the camera switch when you look to the camera?

No, I have Stephanie and Shan. Right? So, and that’s been another incredible thing this year. Rory is that so often we’ve, we’ve been on our own on the road doing our deal, and it’s been very much a solo effort. This brought our whole team together. My wife Shea is incredible and is a visionary and a video producer and developer in her own, right? So she brought a lot of understanding in terms of how to do this and was able to source the equipment. We leveraged fellow NSA, friends, like [inaudible] and others who, who helped us understand what they were doing and really cut our learning curve in terms of making this happen. So Shay’s here and she’s operating a camera and and kind of running some things in the background producing Stephanie is the, is doing the camera switching. And so we’ve, we’ve practiced enough and she’s watching me attentively. So when I, when I look from this camera, I do it very abruptly and she sees that and then she’ll, she’ll make that change. So it’s, it’s really a matter of me being clear with where I’m looking and, and then she knows how to read that. But you know,

And direct, you’re directing the camera shots basically by a definitive gesture to move where normally in a TV studio, somebody, the director is moving the tally light, the little red light, and then you follow that. You follow it, but you have it in reverse.

And what I’ve learned is I just have to be very clear because if I’m kind of like wandering around, she’s got no idea where to go. Right. And so it’s just, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve developed that skill over time,

But I love what you’re saying. That’s a, that’s a very SIM, that’s a similar parallel to just wandering eyes in an audience versus deliberate eye contact to like different people in the room. Right.

And, Oh my goodness. I can really go into that. We could do a whole tutorial on how to, how to teach to a camera which is maybe we should

Have you come back and do another one of those.

Yeah, exactly. But but the point is, we’ve learned a lot and we’ve really used this period of time to our advantage. And so this concept of a spectrum of certainty really is about three steps, three strategies that we teach to claim your certainty. So we got to claim what is certain, everything that we know already, still counts. We just have to use it differently. We have to redeploy what we’ve gained all these years and say, how does it still serve us? Or how does it serve us now in maybe even a better way than it did before? And so, instead of when you feel uncertain about some things, you can feel like you’re uncertain about everything, and it’s not true. There’s a lot that, you know, and it all counts and serves you. So you really have to claim it. You have to embrace what’s unknown because you, and I’ve seen a lot of speakers, authors companies, clients, who who’ve just spent enormous amounts of energy saying, well, when will this be over and how are we coming out of it?

And when will we be back on stages? And it just, all this mental exercise on really what is right now, not only unknown, but on knowable, right? We can’t control that. But what we can do think about your future as if it’s not just uncertain, but it’s unfolding, it’s unfolding and you have this role you’re playing in terms of how to shape it. But there’s just some things we’re not going to know until we get to the next chapter, like reading a great book or watching a great movie. You don’t have to know the ending to enjoy the movie to be engaged. And, and, and along the way we can create more certainty than the way you create more certainty is by testing yourself and improving yourself and saying, regardless of how everything else is working out, I know for sure we’re going to be better on the other side of this because of what we’re choosing to do now. And this studio is really our response to putting that into action. Right.

Right. Yeah. I, I mean, I love this. So can you walk back to the library? Is that, is that doable? Yeah. Amazing. And so then you just move over. So these are three, literally three different physical setups you have in the space. Then the room that you’re in this, isn’t like a virtual background shift at all. This is

Three physical spaces, five cameras. So there’s only one camera in here, which is all I really need, because again, this is about pouring into your heart, you know, and, and just really connecting eyeball to eyeball.

Yeah. So, so it’s a five camera shoot. And then the, in terms of the other technology, you got two people to run the room. You said Shay and Stephanie are both there to like help you operate things when you’re doing it. And then so you obviously have a switcher. So this is just like an alive event. You have to have a switcher to switch camera feeds. So you have a switcher. And then is there any other big pieces of technology that’s going on? I mean, must be some program that you’re running to like S or is it just different camera feeds into a school?

The beauty of keeping it with the physical switcher and we’re using an ATM system, a black magic ATM, which has a total of eight different camera inputs. We’re only, we’re using five for cameras, we’re using one for media. So in other words, we could start our show by taking a video and intro video that brings it in or cut to a video. I have, I have a scene where I’m in the action room and I finished something and I’m talking about, you never know where your next challenge is going to come from. And literally at that moment, a rope drops from the ceiling and I’m like, okay, well, I’m going to, I’m going to go for it. And meanwhile, watch this video. And I literally climbed the rope out of the camera lens, and then we cut to video. And so it’s, it’s really like producing a TV show, but the equipment of the cameras, bid cameras, a good switcher, a good computer to drive it, the S the software, because it’s hardware, you don’t need a sophisticated software program.

Usually there’s another device that flows out of the switcher for the interface to whatever platform you’re using. And what we found is depending on the platform, whether it’s zoom or go to meeting or black or whatever, it could be a Microsoft teams this afternoon, we’re doing one for a platform we’ve never done before. It’s a proprietary thing with each of those setups. And also with each of the updates, because there’s always new security settings and things like this, you really have to always, re-examine how your equipment’s working and make that happen. So it’s not a one and done set it and forget it. This is something you have to keep learning as you go.

Wow. but more or less you, you got, you got, you got a switcher, you got some camera and you got inputs from the from the cameras. And it’s not, you know, it’s not impossible. I mean, you guys are pulling it off. This is incredible.

Well, thank you. But I, and I also want to point out because I know that that a lot of people starting out are thinking, well, sure, like if I had a studio and a set, then, then everything would be easier and I’d be much more engaging and whatnot course. And the point is, you know, that’s the trap of this business is that comparison to what others are doing or what they, what you think will be necessary. And it’s not, it’s not necessary. There are so many of our speaker friends who are, who are doing something so much more simple and are still having incredible success because they know how to connect with an audience. And they’re bringing relevant content, which is the whole key. I mean, if you think about like an X, Y axis, this whole business and success and brand is about relevant content and then your engagement and your experience, and, and not just, not just what, you know, how, what, you know, really fixes the problem, applies to your audience and are you delivering it in a way that they can really absorb it, learn from it, remember it for a long time to come.

And so you can do that in any number of ways. This is just one of the answers. This is the answer that works for me.

Yeah. Well, this is so extraordinary. And, and I would, I would just, you know, I echo that point and emphasize that it’s not about the technology or any, it’s like, it’s your mindset to go? How can we serve? How can we adapt? How can we pivot? How can we be off balance on purpose as you say, and make the most out of this. And and it’s fun, you know, like I just, I really love it. You’re, you’re what a great way to showcase you, living out your message and your whole team coming together, and, you know, the family business of your wife and your daughter, like it’s just really, really cool. So Dan, where do you want people to go if they want to connect with you and like find out more, and man, if you’re booking virtual keynotes, like don’t bother calling Rory Vaden, just call Dan Thurman, just like skip past us contact Dan. And w H how do people connect with you?

Sure. Just it’s super simple. Just go to my website, Dan thurman.com Dan Thurman, T H U R M O n.com. It actually loads at the moment to our virtual page, but there’s a lot of content and resources there too, as well as our weekly coaching series. So maybe you’re running a team and you’re really looking for something that you can use to help them recalibrate their mindset. There are some videos on my website that can serve you and conserve them. And by all means, please help yourself and use those and spread those as you will.

So we’ll put links there to Dan thurman.com as well as to Maggie and Dan’s Tik TOK profile. So you can see this as lots and lots of fun. My friend, we just appreciate you and your mission and your heart to serve people. And just make the most of the talents you have to make the world a better place. And that totally shines through. And, and we wish you the best.

Ep 113: The Miracle Morning with Hal Elrod | Recap Episode

Hey, welcome to the recap edition of the influential personal brand podcast. We are here breaking down the episode with Hal Elrod. AJ was just making fun of me before we started. And so that’s why I see he’s chuckling, but we’re going to give you our top three and three takeaways, and I’m going to go first this time. You know, I have so much respect for how I think you probably hear that in the interview, but from a technical perspective, in addition to his personal story of dying and coming back to life, which is incredible. He also is an eight self publishing success story, probably my favorite self published success story. And everyone thinks you have to traditionally publish. And there’s a lot of advances. There’s a lot of advantages to traditionally publishing, but you know, he tells the story about for three years, he tried to ride it and he thought he had to traditionally publish.

And then finally just realized that actually the publisher doesn’t do that much to promote your book. And so you have to do the promotion anyway. So why not self publish? And he does it and boom, 2 million copies tell, I don’t know of anyone that sold 2 million copies, self published, and it’s just incredible. And to me inspiring that it’s not just traditional publisher. Self-Publish it’s what is your dream? And what belief are you allowing to hold you back? What, what wall are you allowing to be there that you’re, you’re acquiescing to? When in reality, there’s not even a wall there and you can just blow through it and figure it out yourself. You don’t need to get a TV show. You can launch your own show. You don’t need to get a traditionally book published deal. You can self publish, like you don’t need to be on national radio. You can launch a podcast. So many limits just exist in our own mind. And I just, I loved that. It was inspiring to me it a long rant. That was not that long. Hold on, pause the recording. Let’s go look. I don’t think it was though.

It’s felt long, been a long day, but I think is really pertinent to this particular interview. And as you can tell, this is a, not a shower day for me. This is my mommy day. And Rory, actually,

For those of you watching this on YouTube, those of you listening to the podcast,

I sound just as like normal

In full makeup and full hair and her nicest outfit.

Oh, well, yes, but I will tell you it’s, it’s kind of interesting because we, we came in through, from a weekend trip yesterday and didn’t have time to record our recap when we typically do. And Tuesdays are always my mommy day where I’m just full time mom, all day long with my two toddlers. Which means I don’t usually get a shower or hair or makeup or do anything for myself. Maybe I get to eat. But Rory was like, Hey, I really want you to listen to this. And I’m like, Oh, you can just record this one. And then I listened to it and I’m like, Oh, now I know why he insisted that I listen to it. Cause I had a really couple of negative moments of like, I’m so overwhelmed. There’s not enough. There’s not enough time to go around.

No one’s looking out for me. Kind of had some of those moments and he was like, Hey, are you going to listen to that podcast? And I’m like, okay, well now it’s all clicking and I’ll putting together. And I think that was one of the things that was really important to me listening to this and why all of you should listen to this as much as you’re going to learn about your personal brand and self publishing and traditional publishing for that matter and building a community. I think the first half of the interview is worth listening to whatever you, you gleam from the rest of it is awesome. But the first half is just such a great reminder, no matter where you are in your personal brand journey, you control how you feel, right. You control. If you think you’re succeeding or not.

That has a hundred percent to do with your perspective and your perception of what is impact to you. Is it one person? Is it a million persons? Like why does that matter? It’s like, why do you have to have a hundred thousand followers versus a hundred followers? If you truly believe in what you’re doing and what you’re called to do. And that, I just feel like that more than anything else is why you should listen to this interview and follow Hal and read the book and do all the things and why I really needed to listen to this myself right now is that great reminder of, I have nothing to complain about. I have everything to be grateful for and so do you, right? If you have the opportunity to share your message to even one person that is worth it, it is not about your follower count.

It’s not about six, seven, eight figure advances, even though those are awesome, right? Those are amazing byproducts of just doing what you believe in and what you’re called to do. And I just think if you just focus in on what are you called to do and what are you passionate about and what are you grateful for and how does that just exude from every part of your being, this will work out for you at some point at some time in some way, this will work out for you. And how is a great example of, I’m not gonna wait around for anyone else to do this for me, I can just go do it myself, because I feel that called to the message to the mission and to getting this out there and I’ll do what I gotta do. And sometimes that’s what we gotta do. So that’s why I really think this is awesome.

Yeah. And that, as I would, I would count that as my, I was actually going to save it for my third takeaway. But since you brought it up the first half of the interview, if you haven’t listened to it yet is his personal story about how he died. Came back to life, died again, came back to life, made it through this whole bout and then had cancer and just this inspiring outlook on what it means to be alive. And and how you are in control of what’s going on inside. Like there’s a lot of thing, a lot of things externally that we don’t have control over, but everything that’s going on inside, you are in control of your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, what you choose to be grateful for, what you decide to spend your time on and to hear it in the context of someone that has gone through so much challenge is just inspiring.

And I, I agree with you it’s that his personal story is just so moving that it is it’s beyond all the wonderful technical details that he shared, you know, things about how self publishing works and how do you do it and how did the advances work and how does the money work? He was super transparent. But you’re in charge of what’s going on inside of your head. And I think as influencers or personal brands we are, so we’re so used to being the teachers or the messengers, it’s easy to forget how we also have to be the students and getting to learn from other people like how and go, wow. Like I’ve got a lot of personal development work to do myself, in addition to all the business work I need to do on my, on my brand. So it was, that was awesome. That was my second takeaway.

Yeah. And I think one of the, I think one of the more technical components of this as it relates to building your personal brand and, you know, writing and speaking and publishing and all the things that he talks about. But I just really love this, this whole concept of people talk about this a lot in the space of you can’t really make a ton of money selling books anymore. A book is more of like a business card. We’ve even said that well he proves that very, very, very wrong, and I think that’s awesome. Like you need some people to step up and go, no, you can. It’s just, you’re not. And I, that was like a really good like, Oh yeah. Like you really can make a lot of money. I mean, you’ve got plenty of people. Who’ve, you know, you know, you’ve got, you know, the Twilight and Harry potters and all of those ends of the world.

But then, but then like when you come to like the real personal development and business space, it’s like, you’ve got those two, you’ve got, you know, like Dave Ramsey and how L rod on the self publishing route like that, that is worth noting. And I just want you guys to like, pay attention. It’s like he has sold 2 million copies self-published and average retail price is around $20. And let’s just say he even gets to keep half of that, which I think he said it averages a little bit higher than 50%. I’m on print version. Y’all at $9. And I just low balled. It like is $10 would be 50%, but at $9 at 2 million copies, you don’t have to be a mathematician to do this. It’s $18 million. You can make plenty of dough selling your books that you self published. And there is all kinds of talk in the industry about, well, if your book won’t just won’t be seen as credible, or it won’t have the same distribution. Well, that just ain’t the case here. And that just proves all of that wrong of, well, no, you can write, you can do that, but you gotta hustle and you gotta do it and you gotta be committed to it. And I, I think that was a great reminder of, you know, you can just, most people aren’t,

Right. Yeah. If you sell a million of any set and you’re going to make money, right. Like matter what it is. And that’s really good. And, and yeah, I think it’s, you know, John Gordon and John Maxwell are people who traditionally published, who I have sold a lot. They have make plenty of money from just book sales. And the Andrews makes plenty of money from just book sales through traditional route. And then you have hell rod. And then, you know, of course, Dave Ramsey’s self-published stuff and then traditionally published and gone back to self publishing. So yeah, I, I love that. And to your point about the hustle, I was just looking up the notes the first year, he said he did 140 interviews, 30 podcasts interviews did 36 speeches and sold like 13,000 copies. He’s strong, which is super strong, but it’s also not the one where you go, Oh, they sold 50,000 units on opening week. And you know, this is, this is the next book that’s going to sell a million. It was 13,000 copies over the first like year and a half, but then he did it consistent and it grew

Not consistent. It totally multiplied because it went from 13,000 in year, one to six years later, 2 million or a million,

Six years, six years to reach a million,

18,000 to a million in six years is like pretty aggressive.

That’s amazing. Well, and so that was my third point is this Facebook group that, you know, and here’s what I think the point is is that if you build a community around your message, then book sales naturally flow out of that, right? Like most people think, how can I build a community around my book when I have a book launch in order to sell my book. And it’s like this one time thing, how wasn’t doing it out of marketing, he was doing it out of impact. He’s like, I want to create a place for people to support one another in cheer each other on and get them to meet me and I can meet them and to answer their questions. And, and it’s the, the Facebook community that he built that, yeah. You know, when you have 250,000 people in your Facebook group every day, talking to each other, of course, they’re going to like the topic of conversation is around this thing.

That is your book. Of course, those people are going to buy, and they’re not just going to read it and forget about it. They’re in there all the time. It’s like having 250,000 salespeople for your book. And that flew flow out of flown out of it, grew out of it. It came out of a mission to serve and build a community around a message, not build a community around a book. And we actually use house book in our bestseller launch plan, which is one of our phase three events. There’s a, there’s a window of that event that we talk about the long tail sales plan, like the perennial bestseller. And we talk about building a community around you know, a movement, not just around a book and how is this great, an example of that? And you can do that today. Even if you don’t have a book, you can build that community now and pour into people and then it will sell books.

Well, you can tell Roy is very passionate about this particular topic. And now there’s a lot of hand movements, a lot of hands movement,

Youtube. You’re seeing my hand movements come aggressively at the camera.

There’s a lot, there’s a lot of hands moving over here. My third point is somewhat similar to that, but I think that I’m not going to say it’s easy, but how really deep details out the plan of, it’s not that difficult to get your book self published and get it distributed. Right. And he really lays out like, well, here’s the company that does this, and this is how you do this. And this is how you get an audio and here’s on Kindle. And it’s like, I’m not going to say it’s easy because that’s still work. But it is simple. It’s not rocket science. And we just have so many people in our network. And if people who are clients that are just baffled and stuck about what do I do, and it’s like, just do something right. If you’re waiting around to decide if you should get traditionally published, it’s like, I think he made a great point.

It’s like, ask yourself how big is your platform? And if it’s not going to sell itself for you, then you should go ahead and self publish. And here’s what you do, right? Here’s how you set up your distribution with Amazon. This is how you set up your Kindle. These are the percentages, and then you do the deal and then you go out and you sell it. You get on podcast interviews, you go speak and you the pants off of it. But if you really are trying to go for that traditional route, it’s just a great reminder of publishers. Aren’t trying to sell your book. It’s your job to sell your book. So do you want to sell it via a publisher and their distribution or sell it via yourself and use all the other distribution channels that have developed over the last 10, 15 years. That really weren’t there back in 2010, like these are all things that have exponentially made this process easier for people to get their messages out there, which is you. And you don’t have to be traditionally published to make tons of money and to be a super credible author these days, you’ve got tons of examples of that. It’s just how bad do you want to do it?

Absolutely. Amen. And you can find a way you can figure it out, by the way, if you’re looking for tactical strategies on how to actually market your book. I mentioned this already. We have an event called bestseller launch plan, which specifically teaches you tactics to market the books. And we use, like I said, how as a case study, another thing that we address in there is when to self publish versus when to traditionally publish you know, a quick tip on that just to rough, a rough guide is we usually say, if you have a platform where you think you can move 10,000 units in the first four to six weeks, that’s a good signal that you’re ready for traditional publishing. And that it probably makes sense. And if you’re not there, or even if you are there, you still need to take a good look at self publishing because of all the reasons that he was talking about the cool 18 million of them, if you got a calculator so anyways, go listen to the interview. Thanks for being here, knocked down the walls, let us know how we can help you. We’re here to support you along the way. We’ll catch you next time on the influential personal brands.