RV (00:02): So there’s a reason why Pat Flynn is a legend in the world of podcasting and just creating content and specifically creating community. And it’s the, it’s all the things that you heard on that interview. And if you didn’t listen to interview, go back and listen to it. I mean, pat is, I mean, he is one of the OGs of this space. He’s created this podcasting industry. He has impacted so many people, and you get to hear his philosophies. And that’s part of what I want to share with you now is what inspired me of what he said, like, what inspired me the most? Because, you know, it’s, it’s ironic that, you know, we titled that episode a, a after it, you know, we titled it How AI Will Reshape Customer and Member Experience. And I think the reality of how AI will shape that experience, if I had to summarize it up, is it will put more focus on the human elements, right? RV (01:06): Just like marketing automation and emails and things as, as automation comes in, creating automation in your business is not for the purpose of taking out or extracting the humanity of your business. It’s the opposite. You should be automating the routine things, automating the mundane things, automating the things that must be done as a baseline so that it creates the margin for you then to reinvest the time into the human experience, into the relationship, into the getting to know people, into transformation and changing people’s lives. And that’s what I think a lot of people don’t understand, or they, they do wrong, is they go, oh, I want to create, you know, some way to create massive passive income and not have to work or do anything for anybody. And, you know, maybe that strategy works, but I don’t, I don’t know of anybody that it works well for. RV (01:59): The people who I know are winning are people like Pat, who are going, I’m using technology tools, automation, AI in the future as a way of creating a great experience and then adding the human element on top. You know? So as you, as we think about what is going to take your business to the next level, and what, how do you turn something from a personal brand into a world changing movement? And what does that, what does that look like? And, and right now as I’m recording this, I am texting back and forth with one of our private clients, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, who wrote this book that is called Forever Strong. And this is amazing. What has happened with this woman is amazing. So she became one of my private clients. She came RV (02:59): To my brand mastery event, which are these very micro group experiences that I lead in person. And we have usually only like five people there. And she came to one, several months ago, we were talking, you know, preparing and helping her with her book launch. Her book has taken off in, in an a way that like we’ve never seen. So she followed our whole system, followed our whole process, and everything we talk about is lighting the spark so that it will take off. That is what is happening with her book. Her book has been number five worldwide in all books on Amazon for almost a week straight for almost seven days. That is so insanely difficult. This means that she’s been selling, you know, well over like fif like between 1500 and 2000 units probably a day. Then the final numbers from last week are aren’t out yet. RV (03:47): But, you know, she’s moved a ton of books. She’s, I don’t know if she’ll hit the New York Times, but she’s certainly gonna be a New York Times candidate. And I was literally just talking we’re, I’m just texting back and forth with her as we’re talking about, you know, what’s working and the strategy for how we keep this going. And so much of it is ties into like this episode with Pat and going, okay, what’s working for Dr. Lyon in many ways is, is is very similar to how Pat has built his personal brand and his platform. And it’s, it’s like caring about people. Specifically. If you wanna know how to turn your personal brand into a worldwide movement, it’s understanding that you have to make it more about the message and less about the messenger. You have to make it more about community and less about the content. RV (04:49): You have to make it more about what you believe and less about what you’re trying to get people to buy. That is how you create a worldwide movement. That is how you create something that transcends your work, your expertise, your knowledge, and your vanity and your metrics and your profits and things, and go. And that is how you create something that becomes bigger than you. In many ways, it’s a matter of just setting the intention to have something that is bigger than you, that is greater than you, that is a purpose that is beyond just you, right? It’s more about the message, less about the messenger. What does that mean? It means that your personal brand and the content that you create is being created. Because what you are passionate about is wanting people to live a certain way, wanting people to act a a certain way, wanting people to change their life in a certain way. RV (05:53): And you care more about that. You create more about creating that change in their behavior and making that impact in their life than you do about you becoming famous and you becoming well known and you becoming, you having more followers, right? It’s not that having more followers is bad, more follow followers is good. It’s just saying for, to be a mission-driven messenger, it means that money is good, but money is subservient to the message. Income is good, but income is subservient to impact. You have to be more about the message and less about the messenger. And that is what these people do, and that’s what drives them, and that’s what makes them great, right? And I, I think Lewis Howes a great example of that Lewis House is, is, is someone who’s always just been so focused on helping his audience win, helping his audience succeed, and then Al also helping his guests succeed. RV (06:53): And he’s sort of come along for the ride, right? Like he’s the host that has come along for the ride. And now Lewis is this, this very world renowned, recognized, one of the most influential personal brands in the world, but it wasn’t because he set out on a mission to make Lewis famous. He set out on a mission to help people. The School of Greatness is about sharing and, and, and curating the greatest minds in the world, sharing their ideas for free on a podcast where people may not ever get access to that information, right? And so Lewis comes along for the ride. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon with this, this book, forever Strong is just blowing up. And man, I, I hope, I hope this, I hope we, we, we get good news that she hits New York Times. We got good news last week. So one of our other clients, Nicole Walters hit the New York Times. RV (07:41): She, she hit number nine on the New York Times. That was the seventh time that we’ve had a brand builders group client hit the New York Times in the last 12 months, seven times we’ve done that, right? People following our system and, and what is our system? The system is not gimmicks, right? The system is not gaming. The system is adding value, making a difference, creating a movement. And what’s happening with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is she’s teaching the whole world, right? She’s an actual, she’s an actual fellowship trained doctor, is she’s saying, we all think that we’re over fat, right? We think that we’re over fat, but we’re not over fat. We’re under muscle. And so she is starting this muscle movement, right? She calls what she does, muscle centric medicine, and she’s talking about what she believes. It’s not so much go buy my book, buy my book. RV (08:33): She’s, she’s, she’s passionate about educating people to go. The whole narrative has been about losing weight and cutting carbs and cutting calories and like reduce, reduce, reduce. And she’s saying it’s not about that. What really creates health is more muscle, right? More protein, more, more muscle. And so we all think we’re over fat and she’s teaching us, no, we’re under muscle. And then if we can build muscle, then all these other health benefits take care of themselves. And it’s, it’s a fresh, it’s a fresh message, but it’s, it’s about the message, not the messenger. And it’s, it’s about what she believes, not what she wants you to buy. That’s how you create a movement, right? And we’re just, we happen to be on the, on the behind the scenes, like inner workings on, on her actual team. And we have been for the last several months of preparing to launch this thing with the force it deserves. RV (09:26): And now we’re seeing it like catch and start to take off. It’s amazing. I mean, it’s blowing my mind, the numbers that she’s posting, we’ve never seen before. And truly just like all organic sales, you know, we do all of these mechanics, we teach all of our clients to do around, you know, generating buzz and presales and all the marketing efforts and you know, et cetera, all the things we teach in bestseller launch plan. But she’s not even focused on a bestseller list. She’s not focused on how many units she’s gonna sell. She’s not focused on growing her social media following. She’s focused on a movement she’s focused on, on a mission. She’s a mission-driven messenger. The message is more important than the messenger. What she believes is more important, and it is what she’s talking about more than what she wants you to buy. RV (10:13): So the book gets caught in, in, in the groundswell of that, right? So the book kind of goes along for the ride. Her personal brand goes along for the ride. And that’s what happened with Lewis House, and that’s what happened with Pat Flynn with his podcast, right? He’s, you know, just been focused on the movement and the message. And, and I love what I love, one of the things that Pat said in the interview, again, go back and go back and listen to the interview. You just don’t get, you just are not gonna get access to somebody like Pat typically, you know, you don’t get that kind of access all the time. So it’s a powerful conversation. And one of the things he said, which I loved, he said, make each piece of content that you create a gift for your audience. Make each piece of content, you create a gift for your audience, right? RV (11:08): Is your content a gift for your audience, or is it something you do so you can grow followers? Is it a gift for your audience? Or is it something you put together so that you can sell people and get your hands in their pockets and take some money? Again, I’m not against money, I’m not against followers. We’re, we’re fans of money, right? We like money. We, we like followers, we need those things to make a difference, but it’s where does it rank in the order of priority? It’s is money subservient to, to the message, to the mission is serving your audience the priority? And then all the other things are subservient to that. So it’s not that there’s, you know, these things are bad, it’s just the order of priority matters. It’s about service, it’s about your audience. It’s about making an impact on the world. RV (12:00): It’s about going, what would I say if, if money didn’t matter at all, right? Like, what is the thing that I would dedicate my life to? What is the thing that I believe in? And when you’re creating content, the content is a gift. And y’all, I have one of these gifts for you, like, I’m, I’m gonna go, I’m, yeah, this is also a little bit off, off topic, but not really, you know, a few like a couple years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night, this very sobering thought, which was, what happens if I die before Jasper and Liam, my kids are old enough to have a conversation with me where I can truly explain to them the logical and historical and archeological elements of why I have come to believe that, that Jesus of Nazareth is actually a deity. Why he’s actually a messiah. How, what is the evidence that I have discovered through research and reading and exploration and critical thinking and challenging and, and, and discussing and, and, and, and, you know, all of these things that I have done in my personal life, not in my business life. RV (13:22): And it was a sobering thought to go, wow, I’ve spent over 20 years, almost 20 years of my life now in my personal life, exploring this thing that is not a part of my business and my personal brand and what I do professionally, but it’s really important to me to share that with my kids. And what happens if I died before my kids got old enough? And that created this deep sense of urgency, this deep urgency in me to go, I have to get, I have to get this recorded for Jasper and Liam. Hopefully nothing happens to me, right? I’m not planning on going anywhere soon, but like, if something did, this issue of eternity is so important to me, and there’s so much misunderstanding around it, and I’ve spent so much of my own time exploring the evidence for this that it is of tantamount significant importance to me, that my boys one day will get the benefit of all of that knowledge. RV (14:21): And I said, I have to create this. I don’t have a way to monetize it. I, right? And so all I did was I just driven out of this, this purpose really for them. And then, you know, we recorded it and it’s 15 episodes, and it was like, well, we can’t release 15 episodes on this podcast, so, you know, we need to start another podcast. And so we are launching this, this whole separate podcast series called Eternal Life. Seven Questions Every Intelligent Skeptic Should Ask About Jesus of Nazareth. What is this ep? What is this podcast? It’s just me sharing my personal life’s work of exploring the evidence, the logical reasons, the historical reasons, the academic reasons, the archeological support to go, how is it that a logical, rational person could ever believe in this idea of a human that was a deity, that was somehow a God who performed miracles and then died and re resurrected and came back to life? RV (15:21): Like, how does any rational person believe any of that? And, and that was the question I asked that caused this 20 year journey of me unpacking it to where I have come to the full conclusion that it is definitely what happened, and that there’s a mountain of evidence that supports it. And I’ve documented it for my boys, and I’ve decided to go, okay, why not release this to the public? Why am I telling you this? Because it’s a massive amount of time. I have no way to monetize it, right? I have no plan of making money. I’m not suddenly gonna build a personal brand around this idea. It’s just a project that was like, I have to share this and I’ll, you know, I have to make it and I might as well share it. So it’s a gift, right? And it’s a great example of, you know, when Pat said that you have to create, make each piece of content a gift. RV (16:15): It is a gift. I have no other benefit from that. Now, hopefully every piece of content that I create, everything around the four levels of influence and the psychology of influence, which is what my actual area of expertise is, and my actual business is about, right? Our business at Brand Builders Group, our team is about, you know, helping people become wealthy and well known, helping them make a bigger impact, helping them monetize their message and their personal brand, which is my actual core expertise, right? The content for that should also be a gift, right? But I have a reason to make that a gift, which is also that I get the side impact of having a way to monetize it. But even eternal life, it’s 15 episodes, it’s over 15 hours of content that I’ve had to create. It took me two years to build this, and I’m just giving it away for free. RV (17:04): It’s a gift, right? Not all of you are gonna wanna listen to that podcast. Some of you might, right? So, you know, make sure that you, you know, opt in here or go, go Search For Eternal Life is the name of the podcast by Rory Vaden. And it’s coming out soon, and it’s like within the, I think it’s supposed to come out this week, like by the end of this week. So it’s either out now or it’ll be out soon. If you’re on our email list, of course we’ll announce it. If you follow [email protected], I’ll, you know, I’ll be posting it there too, so that you can see it. It’s not the future direction of my personal brand, but it’s a gift, right? You have to make each piece of content that you create, it’s gotta be a gift. There’s gotta be a piece of you in it. There’s gotta be, you have to care. You have to give a crap. You have to have put time and blood and sweat and tears to go, I’ve created this for you and I’m giving it to you for free. RV (17:59): That’s the secret to content marketing, not which hashtags do you use and how do you edit and what are your camera angles, and what is your lighting and what’s the right hook? And how do you play the algorithm? To me, that’s not the secret, right? Those might be the secrets to GE going viral once in a while, but that’s not the secret to building a business and to changing the world. The secret to that is going create content that is, that matters deeply to you talk about the things that matter to you and create it as a gift to do the work of packaging it and preparing it, and then promoting it to your audience. And by the way, promotion is part of the gift, doing the work of telling the world about it. If I do all the research, discover the cure for cancer, but then I don’t do any of the work to tell the world that I’ve discovered it, the net impact of me discovering the cure for cancer is zero. RV (18:57): I haven’t affected anybody, right? So promotion is part of the gift. Promotion is part of the responsibility. Promotion is part of your privilege as the messenger. It’s part of your obligation, it’s part of your duty. It’s not just part of your job. It’s not just part of like, you know, the the price you pay to be successful, although it is that also for a mission-driven messenger, I have to reach more people because that’s part of my calling. Marketing is art, right? Promotion is a privilege. It is my duty. And so when you stand in that place, not the place of vanity going, I need a bunch of people to know about my stuff, but standing in the place of service to go, I have put some work into creating something that I think you’ll enjoy. Here it is. And I want that to get to as many people as possible. RV (19:52): That is the difference. And that is what converts a personal brand into a worldwide movement. It’s that conviction, that clarity, that dedication. And you see this with the biggest personal brands in the world, right? You see this with Dave Ramsey comes to mind, right? Dave Ramsey. He doesn’t need money. He hasn’t needed money for decades. Like he’s still on the radio three hours every day. Why? Because it’s a movement for him, it’s a mission. He’s going, I know what it’s like to be broke and, and bankrupt and be upside down financially, and have somebody come into my home and take my daughter’s crib to sell it, to pay off my debt. He knows what that feels like. So getting another download on his podcast or another follower on Instagram or another speaking engagement or another dollar in his bank account is great. It’s not why he does it. RV (20:51): If he did, if it was why he was doing it, he would’ve stopped a long time ago. He doesn’t care about, it’s not that he doesn’t care about those things, right? Those are byproducts of the mission, of the movement of the cause. And, and, and those of you that are clients of ours at Brand Builders Group, you know, in our, you know, we’ve got 14, 14 courses in our, in our curriculum, 14 different two-Day experiences that we take people through. And our flagship first experience finding your brand, DNA, we take, we help you create a brand positioning statement, which is what problem do you solve in one word? What is your uniqueness in one word? What is your solution to that sentence or that that problem? In one sentence, what audience, what audience do you serve in one phrase, what one revenue stream matters above all others. RV (21:38): And then we also teach you something called the cause, right? The problem is what people are struggling with the cause is why they are struggling with it. So the, the concept of a cause inside our curriculum, our formal curriculum at Brand Builders Group, it’s a, it’s a semantics. It’s a, it’s a formal, it’s a part of our vernacular. It’s an element that we teach on, is that there’s the problem which people are aware of. This is the thing they know they’re struggling with, they’re willing to admit it. And so we use that in marketing because it attracts people. ’cause They see it and they go, yes, that’s me. But then we teach, we teach messengers and we help them identify the cause, which is the thing that their audience doesn’t see, right? The problem is what they’re struggling with the cause is why they’re struggling with it. RV (22:20): The problem is what they’re aware of the cause is what they’re unaware of. The problem is what they think they is. The, they think is their issue, but the cause is what their real issue is. Well, academically speaking in brand builders group curriculum and in our construct, in our paradigm, our semantics and our vernacular in our frameworks, the causes, everything that I have just said to you, it meets those academic criteria. Additionally, though, deliberately and intentionally, the cause we deliberately use that word as a double entendre, meaning it has two meanings, A double meaning. It has the meaning of all of those things I shared, but it also doubles as the cause for your life. It is the cause, the, the purpose of the messenger. It’s the reason why they have dedicated their life to doing this. It is, it’s the, the source of their inspiration. RV (23:16): It is their cause for creating their personal brand, their cause for digitizing and monetizing their reputation, their cause for writing a book, their cause for creating a speech, their cause for launching a membership or a podcast or a course. It’s their cause. It’s their reason. It’s their purpose. In addition to being the cause of the root issue that people struggle with, the cause of the messenger is to say, I’m going to dedicate my life to eradicating the world of this invisible enemy that is taking them down. Right? For Dave Ramsey is helping people be debt free for Dr. Gabrielle Lyes, for helping people to be healthy, right? For Pat Flynn, it’s for helping people to, to, to create more income. Rambler’s Group, it’s for us to help you create more notoriety, to help you become more well known. So you have to find a cause that is something that you would dedicate your life to, and the the, when the cause elevates and you become subservient to that, that is when there’s a chance for your personal brand to turn into a worldwide movement. RV (24:41): And when it turns into a worldwide movement, there’s a bunch of other wonderful things that come along and you get to come along for the ride, right? I get to go along for the ride. The book gets to come along for the ride, your business gets to go along for the ride, but not because that’s first, because it’s a byproduct of being more focused on the message than the messenger. More about creating community and not just the content, and more about sharing what you believe and not just what you want people to buy. So make your personal brand a cause, make it a mission. Make it a movement. We’ll catch you next time on the influential Personal Brand podcast.