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What Successful Personal Brands Do Differently
Chris Do reveals why most personal branding advice is wrong and how to build a brand based on who you are, not what you do.
Chris Do
Founder, The Futur™ · March 23, 2025
The Great Personal Brand Deception
There is a church of personal branding, and nearly everyone is preaching from the same book. It’s a gospel of marketing funnels, sales tactics, color palettes, and consistent posting schedules. But according to The Futur’s founder, Chris Do, this entire school of thought is-built on a fundamental lie.
“I'm a blasphemer in the Church of personal branding,” Do declares. “Because 99% of the people talk about it in a very specific way, and I'm against everything they talk about.”
This mainstream doctrine defines personal branding as a set of actions. It’s about what you do to get more clients, make more sales, and optimize your social media presence. This approach is not just flawed. It is fragile.
The problem is simple. What you do changes. You were a student, then a designer, then an art director. As you evolve, your roles shift. If your brand is tied to a professional title, it has no permanence. It lacks a core.
The alternative, Do argues, is a radical schism from this way of thinking. Personal branding is not what you do. It must be about who you are.
This isn't just a semantic difference. It’s a complete reorientation from external tactics to internal truth. “The only thing that's left, it's not what you do, it's who you are,” Do explains. It’s a journey into what psychology calls the self-concept, the profound, lifelong question of “Who am I?”
Most don't have a clear answer. Our identity is a collage of definitions given to us by parents, teachers, and bosses. We have been conditioned to perform, not to be. As Do made clear in a previous masterclass, this is the core distinction between a corporate brand and a powerful personal brand.
What Is a Brand, Really?
To understand personal branding, you must first understand what a brand is. Do points to the foundational work of Marty Neumeier, author of The Brand Gap and a godfather of modern brand strategy.
A brand isn’t your logo, your product, or your advertisements. Neumeier defines it brilliantly: “It's a person's gut feeling about a product, a service, or an organization.”
A brand is a reputation. It exists in the minds and hearts of other people. When enough people share a similar gut feeling, a brand is formed.
Now, apply this to yourself. Do you have a personal brand?
The immediate answer is yes, but it's complicated. Your mother has a gut feeling about you. Your father has another. Your boss, your clients, and your childhood friends each hold a different version of you in their minds. “The problem is you you actually don't have one brand,” Do says. “You have an infinite brand.”
This creates a “multiverse of you,” a fractured identity spread across every person you interact with. At church, you are pious. In an online video game, you might be aggressive and profane. At work, you are the diligent employee. Each persona is a strategic performance designed to be accepted, liked, or respected in a specific context.
This inconsistency is the enemy of a strong brand. The goal is not to have a thousand different versions of yourself, but to bring them into alignment. The path to a powerful, unified brand is to close the distance between who you pretend to be and who you really are.
Closing the Authenticity Gap
Every individual navigates the tension between two selves: the “real you” and the “pretend you.”
The real you is who you are when no one is watching. It’s you in your underwear, eating three-day-old pizza, hair unwashed. It’s the unfiltered, un-Photoshopped, authentic self.
The pretend you is the highlight reel. It’s the curated persona we project on social media, showing only the happy vacations, the perfect family, and the professional wins. This is the version of us designed for public consumption. As Do has discussed before, this performance is a form of self-marketing, not self-discovery.
The distance between these two points is the authenticity gap. The larger the gap, the more inauthentic your brand feels. You post content to build genuine connection, but you do it with a disingenuous projection of your life. The result is low engagement and a lack of real trust.
The solution is not to air all your dirty laundry. It is to intentionally close that gap.
This requires confronting the parts of yourself you’d rather hide. The psychologist Carl Jung called this the Shadow Self: the aspects of our personality that we deem unacceptable and repress out of shame, guilt, or anxiety. It’s the mean streak, the pettiness, the insecurity.
During the session, Do pushes an audience member, Leandra, to move past her polished self-description. When asked about her negative traits, she hesitates, then admits she can be a “pitbull” who goes for the “jugular” when she feels criticized. This, Do points out, is where the real self begins to emerge.
This process of integration leads to a powerful equation Do calls You to the Power of You. He states, “The more you are, the more powerful you become on an exponential scale.” Authenticity is not a buzzword. It is a multiplier for your influence.
Why You Should Love Your Haters
To access this authentic self, you must change your relationship with external validation. Our culture is addicted to praise and terrified of criticism.
This is a an upside-down model for growth.
Praise feels good, but it's like a drug with diminishing returns. The first compliment is a rush. Over time, you need more and more just to feel normal. You become an affirmation-seeker, shutting out anyone who doesn't tell you what you want to hear. “What happens to that? Where do you go from that? How do you grow?” Do asks. The answer is, you don’t.
Criticism, on the other hand, is a gift. Do offers a powerful reframe: “Feedback or criticism, especially if it's well-articulated, are detailed instructions on how to succeed.”
This doesn't mean accepting every troll's opinion. A comment like “don't trust anybody wears a baseball cap” is useless. But if someone says, “I don't really like your tone, Chris. You're a pompous a-hole,” there is valuable data in that feedback.
“My intention wasn't to show up as a pompous a-hole,” Do reflects. “I need to check in with myself in my tone... I don't want to be that person.” His standard response to even the meanest feedback is a simple, disarming phrase: “Thank you for the feedback.” It’s an acknowledgment of information received, not an agreement with its conclusion.
Most creatives are emotionally allergic to criticism. An audience member named Alisa admits she will only accept feedback from someone she respects. But Do challenges this, arguing that valuable insight can come from anywhere, provided you have the strength to filter it. The inability to handle criticism signals a weak self-concept. When you are unsure of who you are, a single negative comment can destabilize your entire day.
This is why every failure is an opportunity and a lesson. It is the tuition you pay for success.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
A strong self-concept is your armor against the negativity of the world. But how do you build it? You build it with stories.
Do references his friend, the acclaimed speaker and magician Vinh Giang, who asks a critical question: why do we tell stories? The common answer is to build connection, to find common ground with others. When a speaker shares they are an immigrant or grew up in a rough neighborhood, it creates an instant bond with listeners who share that experience.
But Giang offers a deeper reason. “We tell stories to remind ourselves of who we are,” Do relays. “So when we're lost, we remember.”
Your stories are your anchor. They codify your beliefs, your values, and your resilience. When a critic online tells you who they think you are, your internal narrative gives you the strength to say, “No, that is not consistent with who I know I am.”
To build a personal brand, you must know and be able to tell three specific stories. This is the Three Essential Stories framework.
- The Origin Story: This is where you came from. It includes your family background, your upbringing, and the environment that shaped you. As Do works with an audience member named Eric, he demonstrates how to make it compelling. Instead of saying, “I grew up in a small town,” say, “I grew up in a town with zero stoplights.” Specific details are more memorable than general statements.
- The Inciting Incident Story: This is the “spider bite” moment. It's the event that forever changed your world and set you on a new path. It’s the clear dividing line between your ordinary life and your new reality. For Spider-Man, it was being bitten by a radioactive spider.
- The Defining Moment Story: This is when you discover your purpose. After the inciting incident, you may wander, lost and confused. The defining moment is when you finally understand what you are meant to do with your life. For Spider-Man, it's the death of his Uncle Ben, which teaches him that with great power comes great responsibility.
These three stories form the bedrock of your identity. Once established, the rest of your life becomes a series of trials and tribulations, of relapse and redemption, that add texture and depth to your brand. Sharing these struggles is not a sign of weakness; it's the key to making people care.
Admire the Struggle, Not the Success
One of the most profound rules of storytelling comes from Pixar, arguably the most successful film studio of all time. Their first rule of storytelling is simple: “We admire characters more for their struggles than for their success.”
Consider Woody from Toy Story. He isn’t a perfect hero. He’s selfish, jealous, and insecure. When Buzz Lightyear arrives, Woody’s status as Andy’s favorite toy is threatened, and he actively sabotages his rival. He is a flawed character. And that is precisely why we love him.
He reminds us of ourselves. We have all felt petty. We have all been jealous. His flaws make him relatable.
Now, look at your own social media feed. Is it filled with struggles or successes? Most people exclusively post their wins: the new car, the exotic vacation, the happy relationship. This is not content that builds connection. It’s flexing. It’s an endless, escalating arms race of fakery that drives people to live beyond their means to project an image of success they haven't actually earned. It's the opposite of what is needed to create content that gets a reaction.
“We see examples of perfect people on social who have a big following and... we emulate those that we think are successful,” Do observes. “So then what happens is there's this weird echo chamber of fakeness.”
If you want to build a genuine, meaningful connection with an audience, you must show them your stretch marks. You must talk about the trials, the tribulations, and the moments you fell from grace. That is what people care about. Your vulnerability is not a liability. It is your greatest asset.
The Nickname Playbook: How to Name Who You Are
With an identity grounded in authenticity and struggle, how do you communicate it efficiently? The first thing anyone learns about a brand is its name. A name is the most portable delivery vehicle for a brand’s reputation.
Your given name might not tell a story. This is where Do introduces a practical and powerful tool: the nickname.
Think of professional wrestlers. You instantly know something about their personality from their names: Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, or Randy “Macho Man” Savage. The nickname is a shortcut to character. It should capture who you are, not what you do.
Do lays out a simple process to find your own.
- Brainstorm Your Personality. How would your closest friends describe you? Make a list of traits, both positive and negative.
- Find Your Avatar. Is there a character in fiction or real life that embodies your essence? An avatar provides a rich world of personality traits, tone of voice, and visual language to draw from.
- Draft a Nickname. Combine your personality traits and your avatar to create a nickname that tells a story. Prioritize truth over cleverness.
Do workshops this live with an audience member named Hazel. She describes herself as sensitive, quiet, and funny, and quickly identifies her avatar as Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons. Lisa is intelligent, articulate, earnest, and often overlooked, a trait Hazel strongly identifies with. However, when asked for a nickname, Hazel jumps to a clever pun, “Hazelnut.”
Do stops her. “Go with truth,” he advises. “Truth should supersede wit.” The goal is to communicate personality, not to show off clever wordplay. A name like “Humorous Hazel” or “Hazel the Quiet Humorist” gets closer to her identified traits.
He provides two powerful examples from his own coaching:
- Trevor “No Love” York. Trevor is a man of faith and a dedicated family man who is constantly overlooked. He is the classic wingman, always in the background. His avatar is Charlie Brown. The nickname “No Love” perfectly and humorously captures his brand of being perpetually underappreciated. He can own this by wearing a yellow shirt with the iconic Charlie Brown squiggle.
- Neil “The Terminator” Dhingra. Neil is a relentless loan officer, always selling. Do identifies his personality as being like the T-800 from The Terminator: an unstoppable force. The mild-mannered Neil can use this avatar to create a fun, compelling stage presence, complete with a leather jacket, smoke, and the famous line, “I’ll be back.”
This is more than a gimmick. It is a strategic framework for building a memorable and authentic personal brand. It gives you a theme, a voice, and a set of creative assets to use across all your content. It turns your personality into an ownable idea, a lesson that many highly successful entrepreneurs have mastered.
The entire exercise is a return to the central thesis. Stop trying to invent a persona you think the market wants. Stop curating a perfect life that nobody believes.
Do the deep work to understand who you are. Embrace your flaws, your struggles, and your shadow self.
Then, find a name for it. And own it completely.
TRANSCRIPT
we're going to talk about personal branding you want to build your personal brand I've been on a on a tear to talk about personal branding because I think a lot of the way that people talk about personal branding it just doesn't fit with the way I see the world so I have a
thesis okay and allow me to use the metaphors and my friend will help me out here so have you used the word personal brand have you heard the word personal brand kind of proliferate in the I don't know ecosphere of the internets yes you guys have right everybody's talking personal person right and
I go and speak a lot and I get to see other people talk about personal branding and I feel like they've been all going to the same church of personal branding they're preaching uh from the Vatican I think and the way they talk about personal branding is how to Market how to do
sales how to build a funnel how to get more clients is that what you guys are seeing or they might talk about your colors and and your logo type and showing up consistent on social media is that what you guys are feeling well I'm I'm I'm kind of happy to tell you I
don't believe in what they're doing so I'm a Blaser in the Church of personal branding because 99% of the people talk about it talk about it in a very specific way and I'm against everything they talk about so I may be like exiled from the church I might be I don't know I
feel like I am and I'm so anti everything that they say you can call me like the anti-christ because I believe personal branding isn't what you do when you hear someone tell you here's how you do your personal branding and they talk about what you do that is not personal branding because you
are more than what you do cuz because one day you were a student does that mean you're a student one day you're a graphic designer another day you're an art director see so what you do changes over time as it should because you're developing as a human being you have diverse interests you're
evolving so the personal brand the only thing that's left it's not what you do it's who you are this is where we we kind of separate churches here so I'm like doing the faction here right what do we call it when they break off the church denominations denomination but what if it's like
not even in the same genre anymore schism m a sect yeah you can say sect SE and if they really don't like you you're just straight up cult that's what oh let's hold on to start making a cult it's dangerous hey guys over here Chris do at the future we're starting a personal
brand cult if no I'm sorry uh the future some people do accuse us of being a gold yeah we might be I don't know okay you're are mesiah yeah the person brand instead of a messiah the personal brand it's the mesiah not anti Chris huh mesiah that's okay the quiza Cataract was that
the quiza Cataract don't say what's that when I say that yeah I mean that's you make me self conscious like I don't know what I'm talking about I mean you don't but that's close come on man all right all right so personal branding is about you who you are and it's a worthwhile
thing because in Psychology the biggest breakthrough in Psychology is this thing called the self-concept it's very powerful and I wonder if humans are unique in the animal kingdom and that we're the only creatures have an imagination Who start to ask who we are I wonder if the tiger is asking because I roar
am I a tiger right we don't know okay the self-concept is who am I and what makes me me and you might not ever get to the answer this before you pass away you might be on your deathbed in Hospice Care terminally ill and asking yourself like what was my life about what
did I do that matters who am I really and so here's the problem is we get a lot of definitions from other people like your parents first of all so we all understand what a brand is right what is a brand everybody who you are no a brand a brand not a person
brand it's your identity just think about the Gap Nike what is it that they have what is it when we say they have a brand recognition Okay is or do all people are recognized have a brand but I'll write it here you said recognition no it's okay I I think I heard you
say reputation yeah I think I heard it yeah reputation you're right I'll help you thank you're welcome I chose peace and love today it's day three day one violence day two even more violence but day three it's all love today okay um have you guys ever read this book called The Brand Gap
by a gentleman named Marty newm no can you guys do me a favorite you can leave anytime you want but I would love if you just came a little closer like all you guys no he's leaving okay come on in guys come on tighten up a little bit it looks better on the
camera I swear to God if you leave I won't mind at all I won't even harass you come on in guys the good seats are here there just come a little the cult you you you want to be careful while coming too close to the cult that's what it is you might get
burned what's that I see that but you're still kind of far away there's this weird Gap behind there okay I'll I'll help you out Marty wrote the book on brand literally wrote the book on brand he's been talking about for a long time he's not just written one book He's written four or
five books and then I think he wrote a fictional story about brand this guy loves brand okay he's the Godfather of brand he say a brand isn't a logo it's a part of it it's not the product or the packaging although that's a part of it it's not the ads that you run
or the pr that you take out it's a person that's gut feeling okay so if you have a brand if I say a brand like Adobe you all have a gut feeling not always good sometimes maybe you love subscriptions yay you know maybe maybe it's helped you out in a really tough moment
in your life and empowered you to have a long meaningful career yay right and there are some cars that have a good brand or a good gut feeling and some that don't okay so it's a gut feeling about a product or a service or organization it comes from here so here's the thing
do you all have a personal brand what do you guys think some people are nodding some people don't want to respond because he's going to call me my voice is going I can't argue that much today everybody you're safe semisafe okay who says yes raise your hand okay those that haven't raised your
hand how come you you don't think you have a personal brand see you thought by not volunteering an answer that you would be safe you see all right so here's the thing let's see if people have a gut feeling about you let's say this is Mom does Mom have a gut feeling about
you yeah yeah usually a good gut feeling usually not always you can have a tiger mom and then there's your dad does your dad have a gut feeling about you often not great so they have two different feelings about you that's a problem because according to Marty when enough people have a similar
gut feeling than you have a brand you might have a sibling you might have a grandparent you might have a teacher you might have a boss an employee employee or a client and they might have a different feeling about you now I want you to just reflect on your own life if you
look at those feelings about you are they consistent are they all over the place you know like my mom always looks at me like I'm a kid no matter what I'm 52 years old I'm still her little kid she even calls me my nickname as kid as small or tiny that's what she
calls me to this day right so the problem is you you actually don't have one brand you have an infinite brand it's good and it's bad so it's there's like this idea of the Multiverse there's an infinite number of versions of you depending who shows up where like if you're a religious your
pastor might have a different version of you you're probably on your best behavior at church I think right but if you're playing video games online you might have a whole different personality now we go now we talking I'm speaking your love language now yeah yeah yeah so you might be swearing you might
oh you mother AF I'm gonna kill you right now I can't you spawn killing me right I say that at church all the time wait what I'm sorry we're talking about video G oh okay yeah yeah okay I'm I'm back on I'm back all right so so it's this kind of fractured version
of you and I have a feeling as to why that is is because there's this real you and there's this person that you pretend to be to different people to be loved to be accepted to be respected to be liked so you might be sitting there thinking well what the heck is the
real me then what is the real you do you know the real you the real authentic you do you know what it is I'm take this from you what is the real you Leandra Leandra real me the real you mic closer the real me is um no I I mean I I know
what what my purpose in life is but I don't NE the real so you don't know the real you no why you nodding like I know the real me because I feel like I do but well then tell me what it is well you got to know you can explain it the real
me is family focused um the real me is Wellness Health Beauty focused um the real me is loving you only said positive things CU you're only you you're right the real me can be mean well why didn't you tell me that part how are you mean tell me the ugly you how I'm
mean um because I get what I want want and so if I feel like I'm not then I'm going to become that mean person or um I'm also like since I was born I I will get I'll get it done I'll work really hard to get whatever is done back to positive no
it's not always positive but I'm going to get I'm going to do what I need to get that done we're about to see the real you in about a second just hang on hang on okay you know what it's like you're in an interview they like what's the worst part of you I
work really hard I'm a family person like I care too much let's go real you guys ever been one of those corporate interviews and they ask you that stupid question what don't you like about yourself what's one of your things you really need to work on you know I just care too much
like shut up I'm throwing up in my mouth right now if you said that to me in interview I'm like we're done can we just be real can you tell me one thing that's ugly about you that you're like I wish no one finds out about me that I feel a little sh
shame or guilt around that's the real you girl no look at your face it's already changing you don't want to tell me oh I can tell you I think that's the real me why not he said that's deep I so the thing that I'm most like shameful about not the most let's not
go there let's just give me a baby one first a baby one um don't give me I work too hard again that I that I'm a pitbull you're a pitbull what does that mean like I'll I'll come at your jugular like I'll you why why would you do that I don't not I
need to figure that out I need to find out anger management what do you mean what would I need to do it's undercover so you won't know like let me ask you this question what would Tate need to do to get you to get his jugular that's say don't smile at her like
that come on tell me that I did something wrong because I work really hard to do everything right so if you said oh you did this wrong then I'm then I'm going to have a an essay about how I didn't do anything wrong okay I need to take the mic from you before
this gets violent here you go back to you so so if somebody were to tell you you did something wrong you're going to tear them apart so you don't like criticism that's dangerous so okay who here would would have a really negative reaction when somebody's giving us criticism raise your hand I I
like that you guys be real I mean it's Wednesday right depends on who depends on who yeah can we give her the mic I want to give her the mic Alyssa Alisa Alisa who would you like to hear criticism from and who would you not like to hear from I some criticism criticism
from someone I respect but if I don't I don't want to hear it what if it was really good criticism I mean I might listen but I probably like if I don't respect you I'm probably not even asking for your feedback if I'm being honest okay do you know what feedback is yeah
what is it criticism what is criticism no it's uh feedback is a response to something I've put out in the universe and you're opining about it whether good or bad okay that's just an opinion but feedback the kind that I think about feedback or criticism especially if it's well articulated are detailed instructions
on how to succeed sometimes all the time I'll tell you how I do it okay this is a reframe Okay the reason why I am where I am is because I love criticism ISM I actually don't like praise so much I'll tell you why and I'm I'm mind F you right now okay
oh you're amazing you're great your work is supreme you're like wow I feel so good what happens to that where do you go from that how do you grow yeah you kind of like spin in this weird cycle so here here's how I think about praise you can praise me all you want
it doesn't really affect me okay so what happens is when we're not clear as to what motivates us and if we're good like we have no idea if our work is good now we're seeking someone else tell if it's good will you tell me will you tell me will you tell me and
we only want to hear from the people who affirm that it's good so we shut down everybody else and it's like a really weird drug and all drugs work the same way the first high is really amazing the second high is I'm a friend told me this the second high is not as
good the third is less and less and now you're addicted and now you need it so bad is anybody addicted to praise let's get real okay thank you I appreciate you I appreciate you thank you a lot of us are I coach a lot of people they're all addicted to praise I'll go
through critical feedback they're like now tell me what I did good I'm like I don't think you heard the 17 things I said how to improve cuz why would you ask for a compliment right now is it meaningful to you does it help you right now so I think our society especially in
the creative Circle we have this idea completely upside down we need do 180 on this instead of seeking and validating getting validation from other others we should be seeking carefully articulated feedback now there's dumbass opinions and I'm not talking about that that's that's just the internet okay but here it goes I have
this Theory we produce a lot of videos of course there's a lot of negative comments on it like oh you know don't trust anybody wears a baseball cap okay sure I don't know what to do with that that's not instructions on how to succeed but somebody's like I don't really like your tone
Chris You're A pompous a-hole is that criticism is that feedback what do you think see I love that cuz I said my intention wasn't to show up as a pompus a-hole I need to check in with myself in my tone sometime I need to be a little softer from time to time I
don't want to be that person so what somebody does is to take time to give you feedback usually even if it's the meanest feedback I just type in thank you for the feedback I'm not saying it's good I'm not saying it's bad but thank you for giving me a point of information I
will do with it what as I need so we'll have a different talk later about the shadow stuff right and the negative critical feedback that you're going to get but if you continue to run away from that I don't think you will grow as fast as you can okay every failure is an
opportunity in Disguise it's a lesson and it's the tuition you pay for Success okay all right so what's up St for oh can you guys say take a step forward please thank you Alyssa Alisa Alisa God darn it Alisa please come in we don't want the fire marshal to get upset at us
okay anyways so we've established that basically a brand is a gut feeling there's infinite versions of these feelings about you and when enough people come to a similar gut feeling it is says it is said that you have a brand what that number is is kind of arbitrary it's a little subjective okay
if 70% of you thought I was a certain way I'm like that is my brand it could be good it could be bad but it is what it is and I'm okay with it either way all right so we have to start to figure out who are we and part of that is
we look at almost all the positive stuff because we want to be admired we almost always hide the negative stuff the skeletons in the closet Carl Young calls this the Shadow Self the part that makes you uncomfortable that makes you nervous or anxious you might feel feel guilt or shame around talking about
for me I kind of think about it like this the real authentic U is the youu that shows up when no one's watching you're in your underwear you e need a cold 3-day Pizza it might be bad it might not you're still eating it you haven't washed your hair and you're kind of
ugly in that moment physically not not inside that's the real you thankfully none of you showed up like that today well maybe one I'm just kid I'm just kidding I'm just kidding guys all right just making sure you're paying attention all right so the gap between these two points determines how real or
how authentic you are right CU we're living this Photoshop life we live in this highly curated world where we only show the best parts I'm on vacation happy marriage perfect kids that ain't real that's who you keep putting out there and the weird thing is most of us put out content to build
a genuine meaningful connection with a bunch of strangers it's how we build trust at scale but what you're doing is this honest inauthentic not genuine what's happening with your account you guys getting a lot of Engagement I mean rappers even talk about that show me your stretch marks show me what is real
okay now I'm not saying you go out there and be your unfilter self all the time so I'm not even suggesting it's possible for this person to show up all the time but what we want to do is we want to close this Gap so as small as possible that's it and how
small is up to each one of us our own level of comfort the inner work we've done okay and I think Jason had said this to be different you just need to be you to stand out you just need to be you to be memorable you just need to be you and so
I have this idea it's called you to the power of you the more you are the more powerful you become on an exponential scale the problem is most of us are pretending to be someone else that's the problem all right that's my thesis and I want to talk to you about that okay
now A buddy of mine his name is Vin Jang has anybody heard of Vin Jang an Aussie he does a lot of communications and storytelling he said something I thought was really awesome he said why do we tell stories do you know why we tell stories if you don't know I'd like a
guess from you but anybody who knows that answer please don't ruin it for everybody else why do we tell stories we love stories stories of the operating system of the human mind stories are the first things that we know how to do the first form of communication and stories is Big Business look
at Hollywood look at uh bestselling novels when we talk to someone the only thing we can really remember is a story all of your memories are stories with an emotion so we understand stories are really important but why do we tell stories connection to build a connection mhm yes can you expand on
that today we can use more words um yesterday we kept it short sure to I don't know maybe feel validated feel heard to um find a similar point in whoever you're sharing that story with a a deeper Bond okay we tell stories to feel heard mhm yes that's real interesting I didn't think
about that you guys tell story to be heard I thought you I thought that when the other person listens to you you feel heard I think that's a part of it but if they what if I don't listen to you tell me your story I'm going to go over here do you feel
heard no but you haven't heard this you haven't given me the opportunity telling the story so the connection comes first before being heard you're right on some of the points okay um so here's the thing when we tell our story other people get to identify with you so when you're like hey uh
I'm an orphan I'm a single mom or I'm childless or I have 14 kids Whoever has a similar story or know someone like that says I kind of know something about you so the story is a shorthand for us to build instant connection is that makes sense so you're correct Shand okay so
when Devon it was Devon right Deon yesterday spoke on the stage the guy who does the graphite pencil drawing when he said I'm from South Bronx all the new New Yorkers like lit up all the people from the Bronx and everybody from the hood or was near Hood in any country would be
like I hear you then he says abolito AB Abita anybody who spoke Spanish like I feel you I hear you and I'm an immigrant I don't speak Spanish I feel you I hear you that's pretty good right so Vin takes a totally different concept he goes we tell stories to remind ourselves of
who we are so when we're lost we remember is that a powerful idea yeah absolutely you sound you seem a little angry about that are you okay no okay you can SM yes absolutely okay we're good right isn't that really cool we tell stories so we can remind ourselves maybe that was your
heard part yeah so I can hear myself that makes sense so we remind ourselves of who we are so we know our Traditions our beliefs our values where we came from maybe where we're going that's a good thing to have don't you think yes and why is it important in 202 4 running
straight into 2025 is it important for us to know who we are a lot going on in the world there's a lot of ways to get lost there's a lot of people pumping out their own message so maybe just Rising above that okay do you put out content on social yes what's your
biggest platform probably Instagram maybe LinkedIn pick one LinkedIn okay you ever put out a poster like it's a really good positive message and some a-hole some tears you apart yeah yeah has it happened anybody has everybody been trolled or like getting gotten really negative feedback I mean you ain't alive you haven't said
anything if you've never been once criticized right you putting out these empty platitudes these positive messages Love Freedom yay right even if you say God that's like hard to hear for some people so you're like I'm all about positivity and somebody will take you down right what happens when you read 99 pieces
of positive feedback and you get one a-hole dropping a bomb on your face it sticks out why is that because that's the one connection you didn't make and that was what you were trying to do by telling that story or putting that message out that's like spoken like a true Asian mom you
missed one you failed yeah you won 100% I'm Filipino so yeah that makes sense technically Asian I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry a little bit a little bit whoa okay all right all right we welcome you okay thank you yes you're part of the club where's Dave Dave's like screw you
Chris okay he's Filipino all right so here's the thing about that the one negative piece of feedback and I'm sure you all feel this is the one that sticks with you you can't handle 99 pieces of positive feedback but the ones like why what did I do to hurt you today why did
I create like what did I do to create violence in this situation so here's the thing we're so unsure of ourselves we don't know who we are that one mother aler can leave a negative comment and your whole day is like am I really that person am I insensitive was I not thoughtful
enough in this moment and that's why we tell our story so we know like no that is not consistent with who I know I am right cuz there are a lot of mother effers out there telling you who you who they think you are can you believe this on social media somebody will
say to me Chris this is not alignment with your mission like bro I wrote my mission I know what my mother freaking mission is right who are you to tell me that no thank you okay so it's very important for us to tell our story now we establish in the previous video or
yesterday the difference between a corporate brand and a personal brand right so part of that is for you to tell your story it's how people connect with you how they identify with you how they fight for you how they die for you and it's how we build trust at scale so there's three
stories that you need to be able to tell pretty quickly you were here yesterday Sarah for that yes do you remember what they were do you know what they were I I don't okay that's okay that's why you're here again today yes okay Sarah the first story is your origin story origin story
everybody knows that right origin story who are your parents where were you born where did you live uh what birth order you have any siblings was a single mom single dad who are their parents what was their education level you know so if I say to you both my parents are professors who
taught philosophy without knowing anything else you're kind of like I know you're from Academia there were probably deep questions were asked at the do household right right but if I tell you my parents escaped from Vietnam and started over in the United States and we lived in Kansas City Missouri you're like oh
that's a different story different story okay that's your origin story and it's important for you to be able to tell that okay now what we do is we tell too much story and what we need to do is once we figure the stuff out we just edit the story so it kind of
is consistent cuz there's just too much information the second story that you need to know and you're all old enough to know this this one is your inciting incident story yes it's the moment that your world changes forever we'll call it the spider bite from Spider-Man everybody understands that bit by radioactive spider
that's his insci the incident before that he's a normal I mean normal like a super smart kid with who understands physics a nerdy kid a kid who was picked on a person who felt undervalued and underappreciated but the spiderbite changes him and then there's your defining moment story where now you know who
you're going to be for the rest of your life some of you have hit that younger people probably not if you're above 30 or 40 you probably have that already now you know who you're supposed to be in this life right so for for Spider-Man it's when Uncle Ben dies and he's like
dude I should have used my power for good not for self-gain okay do you all know your your three stories your origin your inciting incident and your defining moment okay you're not in your head very confident can we pass you the mic now in the interest of time can you quickly just tell
us your origin story like in a sentence or two yeah I grew up on a farm um in Washington state Eastern Washington look at the farm girl see see what happens right there you just signaled there that's called cultural currency okay keep going grew up on a small farm small farm uh Eastern
Washington uh very cold very snowy north of Spokane Washington okay what else about your origin story um I have four brothers and a sister uh parents are still together uh very very small town graduated with 29 other students this is perfect what's your name Eric Eric were you here before Eric no no
welcome thanks for showing up today yeah all right all right so what we want to do with Eric's story is we need to make it shorter more condensed and more interesting how many stop lights were there in your small town uh zero so don't you think that would be interesting to mention instead
of saying small town I grew up in a town with zero stop lights my high school was like 50 kids now we know how small it is so specific details communicate much faster than I grew up in a small town in Eastern Washington we assume it's cold but we you know you don't
have to tell us that part or you can say it was so cold that we give us one interesting fact it was so cold that um it was below 30 and we had to heat my engine up with an electric device before I could start it one morning give us a really weird
fact it's so-call a personal fact you know anything as a kid is so cold that are icicles had icicles or something so cold that you do not want to put your tongue on anything metal outside or you'll be stuck to it all right so that's your origin story and we can do that
what is your inciting incident Story the moment that your world changes there's the Ordinary World and now we're we're never the same again it usually has something to do with what you're doing now it's a clue um I thought you knew these stories well it would be the the hardest part of my
life so it's a really deep story about uh Brokenness from my my family my son and my daughter and my ex-wife so it' be that Brokenness of separation and darkness for a time and then actually finding God in a whole new way okay so the thing that precedes the finding God is your
family's broken apart yes okay then what what's the moment in your life where you now know what you need to be doing with the rest of your life um through that Brokenness finding peace and hope and love uh it's a moment in a parking lot of darkness and weeping on my knees and
asking God to lift off the the burden and the crushing weight of the world and having him do that in a moment okay how close together were these two moments in time uh I mean they're within uh months okay usually these things are pretty far apart typically speaking because we want you to
be lost in the desert for a while we want you to suffer through trials and tribulations and then finally the an is revealed to you it it was like see you later honey God peace it's not a very interesting story okay so it's something like that does that make sense okay so then
what happens is once you know these three stories the rest of your life we go through trials and tribulations which in Joseph Campbell's Heroes Journey might be referred to as the relapse and the Redemption Story how we struggle okay so let's say you struggled with alcohol abuse maybe you're an alcoholic I'm not
saying you are no no I was not I'm just saying T might be but not you okay so you you know you you're never not an alcoholic anymore right you just keep working through it so there will be your dark days now if you follow Pixar's 22 stories or 22 rules of Storytelling
rule number one and you need to know this rule it's very important you know Pixar the most successful film studio of all time they know a thing or two about making stories yes they said the number one rule is we admire characters more for their struggles than for their success okay if you
need to write that down we admire characters more for their struggles then for their success what is Pixar's first official theatrical release do you know uh yeah wasn't it Toy Story it to story who's the main character Woody is he a perfect character no why is why is why is he not a
perfect character what are his character flaws man it's been so long since I watched that movie okay he's selfish he's jealous he was number one on Andy's playlist and then Buzz Lightyear comes in it's like Woody is like all sad in the corner and so he tries to sabotage buzz and then Pig
and Mr Potato had they all hate him like what's wrong with you Woody right he's a flawed character and we love him more because he reminds us of ourselves cuz we have felt Petty we have felt jealous I mean who here is not fallen from grace in one way or the other from
school from parents but if we're all like yes everything's great I know how to accept new friends and of course I'll play nice it's great to be number two right we're like oh who's that why you so perfect there's a term for that right too perfect and we feel too distant now I'm
going to ask you to look inside your soul when you post it on social you talking about your trials and tribulations what are you talking about what are you talking about vacation good stuff your Gucci bag right yeah yeah your friendy watch no struggles why would I care about you now it looks
like you're just flossing on us the whole time or flexing look at your post I mean look at it in your mind I don't mean literally right now and why do we keep doing that cuz we haven't learned we haven't learned this is what people care about so here's the weird thing we
see examples of perfect people on social who have a big following and you know it's human nature we emulate those that we think are successful so then what happens is there this weird Echo chamber of fakeness that's happening they put out something fake and it's nuclear arms race on fakery I'll put out
something fake and then somebody else he said no I can out fake you and we just keep going like that so what we do is we spir out of control we buy clothes we can't afford drive cars that we shouldn't be driving in and stretching our budgets to the maximum instead of doing
the deep personal work does that make sense and we're not telling the stories that anyone cares about and you know these people and you still follow them for some reason you're perpetuating like a self-inflicted wound you want to grow and build a meaningful connection with people build trust that scale and the other
sin that you make is almost all of your content is advertising you're marketing you're selling your services all the time it gets really boring okay now we're going to go into the framework now is everybody on the same page with me anybody want to argue with me I'm happy to argue with you
you know I like to argue are you okay don't be so compliant Dro doesn't he look like the rock I swear to God The Rock was like here I'm like come on brother what are you cooking cuz I smell it okay I'm sorry you get that right come on brother all right okay
sorry cheap shot I got you okay I got to take it okay okay what is the first thing that anybody learns about a brand the name what's the name oh this is amazing restaurant you you have to go to oh I love this car you got to buy that it's the name okay
a name is the most portable efficient delivery vehicle for a brand so all the goodness the feelings the sentiment the gut all that stuff you have to have a name that's why people trademark their brand name because they work so hard so in the beginning when Brands were not a thing you would
go into your local grocery and like hey this this brand of flower I selected it's really good you need to try that as the towns got bigger and more and more people came in the grosser could not say this is what you need to buy right so a gold seal brand flower was
excellent so now you're a flower maker and you want to take a piece of the pie and they would spell gold like g o lde e flow to confuse consumers it created a problem now we got a trademark and we have to defend our trademark everybody understand that so all your good reputation
is ruined when somebody some other a-hole comes into the market copies you makes an inferior product this happens with all of you whatever you do Joe's graphic design and Joe's someone comes in Apes your site Apes your style does something very similar and confuses the marketplace that's what they do so we have
a brand name what is your brand name your name your name no I know your name but is your answer your name okay your first and last name Leandra what's your last name slon Slayton slay t t slang all right that's your brand name right but what if you don't have a cool
name what if your name like you're American your names mean nothing right what do you do with that so when Phil Knight and Friends sat around like we'll call it Nike the Greek goddess of speed or something like that we get it right what if you don't have a cool name what are
you going to do now okay so I want you to play with this idea and I've shared it with a couple of people let's try it on for size okay now you don't know this about me but I'm really into Combat Sports I really am or WWF back in the day Bobby The
Brain Heenan you don't know nothing about him but you know something about him now Jake the Snake Roberts is he a good character probably not right Randy mcho Man Savage you kind of know the vibe right so here's what I think you need to do you need to come up with a nickname
because the nickname tells a story really fast it could tell all the other stories from the other page really quickly okay like um okay let's do this so we're going to have a nickname and if you do this with me it's is kind of interactive you might have some success okay now I
want you to think about this what are all the nicknames you've been given in your life by your mom your dad your brother a teacher anybody and just make a list right so if you have a notebook or an iPad or phone or something just write down what have been the nicknames that
have been given to me what is the nickname that captures my personality not what I do we pretty establish it right your brand is not what you do it's who you are now you might not have any nicknames does anybody here not have a nickname okay I work with you okay now what
you going to say is like what is my personality like when you ask your friends how would they describe you what would they say what is your name Hazel what would they say about you Hazel let's work together I've I don't know Hazel do I know you okay we don't this is not
a setup right yeah we don't know each other no what no I don't know no we don't really know each other Hazel just we'll try it we'll see how it goes this could be dangerous let's see what happens okay Hazel if your friends were here the people really know you your inner circle
your tribe of right of Hazel what would how would they describe you she's um diligent diligent that's such a professional way to say something what else um I try to be kind so I guess kind you try to be kind you are kind or you're not kind are you kind sometimes I'm not
well then unless I'm put that in there we're not trying to sell ourselves we're trying to communicate who we are I'm sensitive okay what else funny not right now I'm just messing around with you making people laugh so making what I'm making people laugh so you are I think so okay no it's
not me who what else um can you just rattle him off it feels like I'm quiet I guess okay kind of quiet funny a quiet humor uhhuh is that you yeah totally yeah yeah just like one word and that's it does that feel like it feels like it's you yeah okay well then
what we want to do is we want to work on this let's say she's like quiet humor okay can you guys get a sense of her personality quiet humor I'm just finding out about right now I feel like that kind of feels like you not not uh a lot of words a little
shy a little reserved yes totally reserved one resered yeah okay okay so what you want to do is you want to come up with as many names as possible and you want to try and see if there's a funnier weirder way of saying it so it's more unique and memorable that's what we're
trying to do okay now is there a character in fiction or in real life that kind of captures who you are Lisa Simpson per you came up with that fast yeah when I see her when I see her like yeah that's me okay this is over right here okay do you guys know
who Lisa is she's artistic intelligent overlooked most of the time right underappreciated and is probably she is a smartest one in the family and she follows rules and she tries to do well she's like mindful that's me that's you yeah totally that's really great now of all those words that I said which
one feels most like you overlooked overlooked yeah cuz I'm kind of shy so I don't like speak up so much and like like it's probably my fault I got it you're under the radar yeah totally okay okay we might get somewhere here so let let me let me see your name again Hazel
I need to see all of it o r o s oos okay Hazel o r oos right yes so of the things that we said what could your nickname be I I say hazelnut sometimes hazelnut yeah just because it's cuz you're crazy no no just because Hazel Hazel not that's it are you
following this exercise at all Tay that's how I call going to come in here and like whoop some sense into you in a second this is hilarious keep I got you we came up with all these words she goes what's your name what's what should your nickname be nut she said Nutella yeah
come on like I have no idea I've been trying to come up with like a nickname like during Tay help me out before I go crazy H yeah so I mean give you my thoughts or reframe the question oh okay got it got it got it yeah so essentially based on all the
stuff all the stuff that's listed up here using Lisa Simpson using quiet humor Reserve funny what do you feel like the nickname could be based on that and I guess just shoot for something if you think of something that's really clever that's fine but I even think just starting with something that could
even just be simple or clear and then we can try to work on the cleverness of it right so what do you think I don't know something like hazy something okay hazy I feel like we're getting somewhere does just real quick you can does someone feel like they have something yeah for her
for does someone feel like they have something they could just throw out you can just shout it humor humor is Hazel humor is Hazel I like that we're going somewhere we're going somewhere we got something else uh yeah like the Hummer oros yeah okay I like that Hazel the Hummer oros that's one
that's a good one that's a good one any anyone anyone else one more one more go go Purple Haze okay why why why Purple Haze you think about yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay okay isn't that another word for like drugs that's what I was thinking too I was like she didn't give
me that Vibe but you know there's no projection here okay I don't judge but you know we're talking about hazel beer oh okay oh that's true that's true and a Beat and a beat a Purple Haze yeah yeah okay okay okay okay I already see a problem she said I most identify with
Lisa Simpson and then she's like forgot about that whole thing went back to nut and being clever you know what's wrong with creative people they like being clever more than doing the right thing you know like I got a really cool hidden logo idea I'm like what's that got to do with my
business nothing go with truth y truth should supersede wit we'll get to witty later because it's supposed to capture who you are as a human are you nutty I know you think you're humorous but I'm going to challenge you later that maybe that might not be your most shining strength okay the the
one that reveals your character your personality because when you say hazelnut Simpson that ain't working at all is Lisa Simpson humorous not deliberately she's pretty pragmatic she compromises she's a kind of a good facilitator of things why don't we bring the personality into it the reason why I brought Tay up here is
like we have all these words and ideas and you just threw them all out and just went with your own plan pretty typical of the last two days yeah no matter how I try to lead you to water the horse like I don't want that water bro give me that mud okay so
I know that the clever designers are humorous I I get it you you're so clever I thought that was good it is very good no it was really good except for it's not her so we we should go for truth yeah right like you know how um Jake Paul you know what Jake
Paul's nickname is the problem child do you know who Jake Paul is he's Logan Paul's younger brother he's trash talking crazy guy boxer do you know what that said like do you need to know any more about him you know he's the problem child there's this guy his name is Conor McGregor what
is his nickname notorious he not trying to be pretty he's just trying to be real you know what Evander Holyfield's nickname is the real deal Holyfield right because in Olympics he got a raw deal so that tells a story humorist tells me no story about you that's the problemes make sense so what
you want to do is work on this okay then what it's easy if we can find an avatar because it's easier for us to think about someone or something and then what's really cool if we had to describe Lisa Simpson's voice how would we describe it not literally how it sounds but the
tone of it how would you describe it okay I'll come back who knows Lisa Simpson how would you describe her tone of voice no no not literally her sound of voice her tone she's monotone oh I think she always try to tries to say the uh good the best thing like the good
thing to say um I don't know how positive optimistic no like you said the word pragmatic or um pragmatic maybe that's too like broad um she's pragmatic isn't she okay I don't know give me words anybody what cnic that's a good one she said cynical is she cynical yeah I'll write it because
you guys say it Dave kagi where are you chat chat Dave is he here Dave can you find out on GPT what Lisa Simpson's tone of voice is thank you sir normally Dave would already be on it and he would shout it out to me but he must be busy making friends over
there okay we'll move on from that okay you know what a CREDO is something that you believe on you what believe yes so it's just a bunch of I believe statements okay I believe can you fill it in for us I believe in what I'm ideal is I believe in a better world
you believe in what a better world well who doesn't believe in a better world tell me something you really believe something might I want want to fight you on it's okay you don't have something no Dave what's her tone of voice can you give him the mic please so Lisa Simpson is intellectual
and articulate thoughtful and reflective Earnest and sincere oh yeah Earnest yeah socially aware and Justice driven yes oh my God the gpts are so good Justice driven mhm uh compassionate and empathetic okay yes okay no more no more okay great thank you mhm compassionate empathetic MH does that sound like Lisa Simpson we're
cynical I told you guys were wrong thanks Dave for getting my back finally there's Justice in no okay so she's Justice aware socially aware or uh compassionate empathetic Earnest sincere thoughtful articulate intellectual is that you not right now but it probably is you though right or you identify at least with that okay
so when we're talking about building a personal brand if we can just figure out a short two to three word nickname that's a container for a story or a reveal of our personality we've done our job we don't want to be clever okay and then what you do is try to think of
an Avatar Avatar are really powerful when you think about Starbucks Starbucks Avatar is so powerful they don't need words anymore right and if I do this if I can do this correctly sorry I did that poorly you think Coca-Cola like icons and avatars are so powerful because they transcend language I can't draw
Colonel Sanders but if I did you would know right and if I could draw the The Shield Cross of harley-dav you kind of would know so graphic designers know all these things but we never ever rarely apply it to ourselves so we got to do is learn to apply the tools that they
training and apply it to oursel so a buddy of mine his name is Trevor York and you know Trevor is like a really like he means well he's a man of Faith he is a family he loves his wife and kid but he is always overlooked always overlooked because he's a good wingman
he's a second player he's in the shadows behind the scenes doing stuff right and he would come on stage and he would be self-deprecating he's like God you know even my kid would vote for the other guy right and he owns that personality so I'm like Trevor your nickname is no love it's
just no love cuz you get no love man no matter what okay and he's like H Chris I don't know I don't know if I like that I'm like I don't care if you like it it's who you are and you could totally lean into this no love you know what the funny
most hilarious thing is I was making fun of his lack of fashion sense he goes out into the crowd of a thousand people they're all his friends and one of them comes up he's like Tanner your fashion sense is good and he comes back he's like dude he's trying to lift me up
he called me by the wrong name my name is Trevor you see how true his no love thing is so we kept talking like who's your avatar Trevor he's said I don't know I'm like Charlie Brown Charlie Brown has no love or Rodney Dangerfield no respect and you can own that so imagine
if Trevor walked around this is Trevor with a jacket on right and he had that little Charlie Brown squiggle on a yellow shirt he could just own it right and if he went into the world peanuts and borrowed some elements and started to use some of his phrases wouldn't that be really funny
he could totally own that and I was working with my other friend who's like a loan officer his name is Neil dingra and I've had him on the pod podcast and Neil's thing is this Neil is Relentless he's always selling you he he'll call a thousand people to sell a program and then
when you go to his program he'll be like you need to sound for my Mastermind bro he is Relentless and people respect him for that but it's very salesy it's a little aggressive buy my product join my Mastermind buy my product join my Mastermind right so I said Neil Relentless is a good
word but I think you're like T800 you're the Terminator man do you guys know the Terminator Terminator 1 Arnold like after they killed him that arm was still coming after you you know like you can't stop this guy and Neil is a mild-mannered kind of like small Indian man I'm like you should
be like Arnold you can come on stage and have like a leather jacket and the smoke and the lasers and the theme song from The Terminator dun done and this mild mannered Indian guy with glasses comes on stage wouldn't that be so fun you're like guys it's been great to speaking to you
you know what I'll do later I'm going to talk to you about joining The Mastermind and just kind of walk off stage I'll be back he could just only do this right and you know in Terminator 2 when Arnold's a good guy he goes to John Connor he's like come with me if
you want to live or something like that you know wouldn't that be cool if he just did that for his M so you can own the theme and the idea now here's the big idea I want to share with you okay when you know who you are it starts with who you are
okay your personality your essence your DNA and you're able to come up with a name that tells your story that captures your essence instead of doing a little piece of content a little piece of content one little Poe what you can do is you can do this did I do that right maybe
it's the other way I I have that up guys it's the other way gosh darn it I failed graphic design okay you build a world I drew a basketball yeah sorry I don't know what you trying to do you know you build a world and then all the pieces from it from the
logo from The Voice the messaging the phrases all come from this now what most people do is they tell one story one story one story right now I'm a big comic book Dork so you know when you pick up a comic book and it tells you one story it's meant to be complete
from beginning to end and then you pick up the second one and the third one but what Marvel does is they tell a little story that's connected to another story that's connected to another story so it's serialized content and that's the kind of content that dominates uh Netflix Apple we don't like to
watch episodic TV anymore we want to watch serial things because we want to be immersed in a world you know what what's really cool is you don't just have Spider-Man anymore you've got like Iron Man and they live in the same world so their stories sometimes overlap and when they overlap the stories
become more powerful and we're like so excited like crossover so cool right now DC has had a really hard time in the theaters of building worlds they can't even build a franchise forget about world but Marvel they're the masters of that and you know the Lord of the Rings you know what token
did JR token the reason why he's so celebrated and loved cuz he he did this crazy thing instead of telling a story he built the world before he tells you the story so it's all grounded they all know each other they've seen things together and there's a time and a place so he
made it as historical feeling as history which is really cool the problem is when you don't who you are your name you can't build the world you don't know what theme or what Universe to play in right so you make one piece of content today I'll post something about struggle tomorrow it's like
look at me I'm eating here I'm at Max there's no through line so what you're doing is you're creating episodic content versus serialize to build worlds so this is what's really cool in the Creator space which I guess that's what I'm part of now okay this is the really cool part and this
happens in the comic book World Let's Pretend This is the universe of Chris and I've been telling my story I've been building my world I know who I am I know how to show up and then Neil starts doing this whole Terminator thing and then Trevor builds his no love thing he builds
his world and when the worlds cross over the fans are so happy like oh my God the two people I didn't know could get together got together isn't that super cool so recently I didn't episode with a guy named Morgan Jay who's a comedian autotune comedian he's so freaking funny and then it
pops up on YouTube with no announcement or Fanfare and the fans are like I didn't know I needed this collab and it's happening my two people are together autotune comedian business guy together we build worlds now who here would would love to collaborate with one of their biggest fan who they're like a
fan of like an idol I you would right here's the problem this is how this works this is their world this is yours because you tell episodic stuff do you think they want to work with you they don't know who you are you know why cuz you don't know who you are that's
the problem but you know what you come in you build your world they're like wow we need to do a collab there needs to be a crossover and this works not just in fiction or in personal branding it works in the real world I'll give you the example and I'll end this okay
you know this brand called Supreme they do uh Street Wear right really hot at one point not so hot anymore and supreme did this collab with LV Supreme brought Street aesthetic and a different audience their world into the luxury fashion world the highend and that excuse me that collaboration to this day is
one of the hottest things those two companies have done because I did some research our friend told me you can buy a raincoat from lV for probably about three grand you can buy a supreme raincoat right now for like probably 1,000 maybe less but the Supreme LV collab is like $10,000 That's The
Power of collaboration the back catalog of the pieces they made together go in the black market on multiples more than what you bought it for isn't that wild LV is an established fashion house the world's biggest fashion brand Supreme had its peak and then they're in their decline but when they came together
at the peak of both hype they did something wonderful it's really cool so do you think you would want to build your world tell your story and figure out your personal brand so we got to get over our head we got to stop pretending we got to start getting real okay we're good
Chris what do you think from all of this what would be the one piece of content that when we leave here today that we can post to start building this world in our social media you can't okay what can you do okay we have a couple of videos online that you need to
watch and kind of slowly process this I'm just jamming freestyling with you guys right now making up stuff as I go there are a couple of videos you can watch and you need to process this I am working on this is not a plug I'm sorry I'm working on a workbook that will
take you through it step by step but I don't have that done right now it will be done okay and that's a workbook that's a companion to the things I'm saying in the videos that you watch I'm thinking about selling for 25 bucks PDF you download you work through it hopefully that starts
you okay but I'm going to tell you something real quick okay if you don't mind um the three stories that I mention I'll show you what they look like okay real quick now we go through phases in our life I think the first phase of our life maybe up until our 40s is
about making a living and many of you are in that phase right I'm trying to make a living doing the thing that I love and I exist to help you make a living doing what you love whether it's wedding stuff or whatever it is or videos or photos right the second half of
your life instead of making a living I think you try to work towards making a difference that's the phase I'm on SO between my 40s and 50s I'm trying to make a difference in the world all right and so I have this big shift in my life instead of making commercials and music
videos I want to go all in an education help others achieve their dream that's how I want to be remembered and to like leave an imprint that the world is a little bit better than the way I found it make sense so the story that I tell and I have three stories I'm
going to show you really quickly how you can do this on your own I don't mean to say it's easy to do but I want to show you it's not as complicated as you think I feel like if I give you the recipe you're not going to become a Master Chef but you
might make something that sort of resembles the thing that you saw in the photo and that's going to have to be good enough for a session like this make sense okay here we go now I have titles for all my stories and it's important that you have a title so that you can
tell it quickly or you can tell the expanded version I could take an hour I can take two minutes or I can take 20 seconds the first one is called from Saigon to Santa Monica I can tell you the entire story or parts of the story and you know something has happened the
two s's from Saigon to Santa Monica okay my inciting incident is just a bunch of names okay it's it's a name of Rudy Brad and Dean I'll tell you what that means Rudy's the high school wrestling coach that my brother was on the team for he introduced me to Brad he says your
brother's a creative guy isn't he does he want to work at a s screening shop so my brother tells me who's my younger brother I go and meet Brad Brad gives me my first job doing a semi- creative thing I was a production artist for his Sil screening shop Brad sends me to
pick up typ setting from Dean on the very first Macintosh computer ever I don't even know what type setting is I've seen the Mac but I don't know anything about it Mac paint I go to Dean and I see and meet for the first time in my life a real life full-time independent
business owner who does graphic design my world is rocked I knew from that point forward I'm going to be a graphic designer and that's what I wind up doing into my 40s make sense everybody that's the moment where I leave the Ordinary World into the new new world and I literally walked across
the threshold it's called crossing the threshold from his hallway into his Studio which was the most amazing thing I've ever seen in that at that point in my life because prior to that I've never met a real life graphic designer before but as you know that's not what I do today so the
defining moment are the two JS in my life the Two Jays see the three titles from Saigon to Santa Monica Rudy Brad and Dean and the two Jay's the first J is my wife her name is Jesse and the second Jay is my friend his name is Jose is Jose the Two Jays
so Jesse goes to class with me and she sees how passionate I am about teaching and she asks this really hard question that no man wants to hear from his wife she says I feel this is a waste of your talent and your energy I believe you can reach a lot more people
than this I don't hear it like that though you know I hear like you're not leing up to your potential why can't you do more or better I'm like damn it I love teaching don't take this away from me so it takes me a year before I meet Jose and when I say
meet I know I've known him for 20 years B comes out of the woodwork out of the blue and says hey we should make YouTube videos together I'm like screw that that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard my life why would any professional want to get on YouTube what idiot would do that
look at the foresight of me right and he didn't take no for an answer he didn't force me to but he does something that every Mentor does for their friend or their mentee he says to me this is very important I know you don't want to be on camera but I'm not going
to do this without you you have to not be behind camera you have to be in front of camera here's the thing I'll do all the Talking you only talk when you feel comfortable enough to talk and that's the most General offer he gave to me which is a person who needed that
as an introvert so for the first few episodes I just sat there like a brick not the cool brick just a brick not a supreme one just a brick and eventually I learned how to move my mouth and say things and then fast for 10 years later here I am just saying things
all the time to all people in violent ways so that's how that's my defining moment right the introvert who struggles with self-acceptance being in front of people being in the spotlight is learning how to deal with this so what happens here is the trials and tribulations are just different stages in different places
and different expectations I'm still struggling I'm still working through it I'm still sweaty still have diarrhea that all come that never goes away just less make sense so before I couldn't eat anything because it was going to run right through my body before I would have like weird gas things in my throat
and I I couldn't talk but I'm working through that and so I tell you that story because a lot of you are introverts who are afraid of putting out content who don't think your ideas are worth sharing who think you you can't be bothered to do whatever it is that you need to
be doing and I'm here to tell you it's not for everybody for those who want it you will surprise yourself to what you can do and who will show up for you never in a million years when Jose and I were sitting in our studio in Santa Monica recording videos on how to
price a logo that I thought we'd be here that 2.6 million subscribers later I'm like there are a lot of nerdy people want to learn how to price a logo there not that many people want to learn how to price a logo but there are plumbers and there's carpenters and they tile makers
and window washers and people do auto detailing who shout out me in the street yo you that guy I'm like it depends are you angry at me you want to give me money I am that guy all right those are the three stories you see I I mapped it out for you I
gave you the titles so in your day today the one clear actionable thing that dgo is prompting me to tell you to do is write in your notebook these three prompts the origin the inciting incident and the defining moment and when you have a moment to think write the title do not write
the talk don't tell the freaking story if the title's in interesting the story will be interesting the title's boring you don't know what you're talking about yet and the reason why I put these three up is they have to kind of be connected right if you're like oh I did missionary work and
then I did this and it doesn't connect that's not your story you're making it confusing for people because people need your help in building the bridge from moment to moment your job is to build that bridge for them and when you figure this part out it'll get you a little bit closer to
coming up with your nickname and the nickname that I use is everybody okay I'm going flip the page all right cool the nickname that I use but it's kind of hard to come up with this is loud introvert okay introversion is something I've struggled with most of my life it's made me who
I am and for a long time I thought introversion was the weakness later on I find out my weakness is my turns out to be my greatest strength which is the same case with you your greatest weakness is your greatest strength there's a weird Duality with this because I kept my mouth shut
I learned to listen more I learned to ask better questions I learned to be more observant and to hold power in being quiet so when I teach people how to do sales I say to them the first rule is just shut up stop talking use as few words as you need to communicate
your idea clearly if you can do that you're going to do yourself a favor cuz people do this too much don't learn anything and the reason why I tell people I'm a loud introvert is because I've learned how to use social media to create a bigger uh presence AA Persona than I really
am so when I go on stage I tell people I'm really super socially awkward if I don't know you I'm not going to talk to you so I want to get so good at content creation I don't have to develop social skills that's it right and I stole this joke right I'm going
to tell you the joke I stole is there's a a TED Talk I think on introversion I should didn't tell all my sources where she runs out on stage where's my introverts at and someone like woo and she's like liar so you see like once you figure out who you are your story
your Vibe your flow your aura you could just keep building off that does that make make sense I don't have to send her a check hopefully so I go out there I'm like where are my introverts at I feel you and nobody raises their hand I'm like perfect you're all introverts right so
no matter what they do there's a joke in there somewhere yeah you know what's really cool I had to come up with this because my students just did not believe I was introverted like many of you sitting here like that guy ain't introverted what is he doing okay so my students I'm a
crazy person in class I'm jumping on tables we're doing push-ups together we're doing all kinds of stuff cuz I think when when I'm loose they're loose and I'm crazy they're crazy and craziness is where creativity comes from right and so one of my former students is like Chris I don't we just don't
believe you we don't believe you then one day she sees me preparing for a talk I'm walking around like R man definitely definitely I don't know I think and she's like oh my God you are a Freakazoid you are a freaky decky what are you doing right now shut up stupid snap out
of it and so one of my um interns writes me a beautiful note and she puts it in my bag I don't even know what's in my bag so I'm in um where am I'm in Alba cque no where's not Santa Fe I'm in Santa Fe about to give a talk my heart
is pounding out of my chest I see that the card is there and I look at it I won't tell you what the card said but it almost made me cry I'm like people care about me God dang it they know how hard this is I went not do my thing this what
I struggle with right and so there's another comedian who does jokes with flowcharts it's freaking ridiculous I stole his joke too it's pretty good so you see I'm looking for things that work for me all the weird introverted tricks that can make you a little bit louder than you are in life the
cool thing is once I figure this out I get on podcast and people are like Chris what is the loud introvert I get to tell that story so when you are able to figure out your thing or when Trevor is like Yo No Love let me tell you that story it's an invitation
to find out more it's a clue as to who you are so once again don't worry about being clever okay be worried about being true sincere and reveal something of yourself the more you can reveal yourself the more people can say not only do I see you but I see me in you
that's how we connect yeah you guys were at the inspiration talks yesterday inspiration Keynotes did you feel that you connected with one of them more than the other who did you connect with most where's the mic it's hot came out of dro pocket uh the lady numy I think it was uh the
girl what's her name imman immani immani you connected with immani yes why did you connect with her can you bring your mic closer because uh she said how she worked on herself and didn't take um external uh validation she created the validation herself okay so you needed to hear that are you going
through some personal development too I I just I also feel like no love you feel like what like I have no love no love oh no we're were talking about yesterday though forget about her I mean forget about no love but but also because I I search for validation externally I see you
see so when she shares that story like I need to hear the story right now right are you getting emotional yes that's okay to get emotional I'm always emotional it's okay you're not apologize for that I'm never emotional I don't apologize for it either you should so judging Tay I used to be
really emotional you okay oh yeah no I'm do you need a hug from Tay no thank you all right okay thank you thanks for sharing did any other inspirational keynote stand out to you that you felt personally emotionally connected to invested in their story because it's your story in one way or the
other imman Devon oh Devon is that his name there Devon Devon okay yeah what was it about it um he said that he got rejected from the uh art High School perfect stop there yeah were you rejected out of school not rejected out of school but I had a professor tell me I
was never going to be a designer okay this is a universal story guys are you getting emotional too maybe I think you are I know is there an eyelash in your eye it's little Dusty in here I know no okay so what Devon did for a lot of people because we've all been
rejected one way or the other someone some mother effort told us you can't do this and so whether we wanton or not because he won we're like There's Hope for all of us so what we're trying to do in this Human Experience is to connect with people in a real way yeah tell
me what you're feeling right now overwhelmed right now well yeah I'm on the spot what did what did Taye do to you Taye what do you doing to people do you need a hug from Tay I mean I could always use a hug from Tay okay oh hey who all right all right
okay so here's the weird thing I'm just going to say this I'm G to get fired right now Amy close your ears Amy walk away from this Bo do you find it awkward how Corporate presentations are I'm not saying any person and I can't stay awake but when you tell me a real
human story I'm like I'm feeling something yeah and I wish when whoever steps up on stage that they would just let go of this idea of perfection and just try to relate to me as a human yeah but they're so worried about being perfect and that's what Corporate America does to you when
you write your talk is every word perfect are all your te's crossed and your eyes dotted did you run this through legal to make sure we can say this in this sequence do you feel that way I do but maybe I'm more sensitive than the rest of you or somebody's running on stage
and like how we doing Max they didn't do it quite like that but I'm like I ain't feeling that why you yelling at me what did I do you know well I wish somebody would just come up on stage like I'm scared out of my mind to see all these eyes looking right
back at me cuz last year I was where you are can I tell you how I got here just have a real conversation you know I was uh in Newcastle I think yeah Newcastle in the UK and it was a marketing conference so they asked me to talk about sales I'm you sure
you don't want me to talk about branding or something like no talk about sales to marketers and I sat in the audience for two or three talks and they were screaming and bouncing off the walls and I started I'm in the wrong conference does somebody want their money back cuz I want to
go home right now they're literally like yo we can do this and just walking across the stage like no we can't we cannot do this we cannot why did they book me and you know what was creeping in my mind to impostor which I'm setting you up for I was like I was
the last replacement speaker I was on my flight home and Amy sends me an email I had just come back from a long trip sends me an email you want to go to Newcastle to speak their their main speaker had a family emergency I'm like are they going to pay the bill Amy's
like yes so I touched down and La kiss my wife take out all my dirty laundry put in a new bag and I'm back on a plane again and I'm out there it's so last replacement there's a sticker over the other speaker's face and and my face is on it that's how bad
it is so I'm like my whole mind is like I wasn't supposed to be here and then when I show up it is pretty clear to me I'm not supposed to be here every speaker is like so crazy I'm like oh my God I'm like I got to get out of here it's
it's short C getting my introversion I got to go in the room and be by myself I worked on my deck I go up on stage and I'm just me I'm doing my thing I'm like I'm sorry guys I'm not going to yell at you that's not who I am I just do
my thing and I assumed everyone is an extrovert and I asked him who who's introverted here I'm just curious if anybody is like me here and the majority of them raised their hands to my surprise or to my supri so I walk out after the talk and a bunch of people came out
to me you you know what they said thank God you're not yelling at us all they were doing the entire time was yelling at us and I was like thank God I'm all right with this you see how the impostor monster comes out and you're it's telling you all these weird things that
are just not true and they're like you were the perfect way to end this conference cuz we needed a break from that let's party that's what they said you know so just want to let you know when you're out there telling your story it's here but your story lean into that part and
the thing is these are Universal stories of Hope of broken relationships of rejection someone not believing you someone believing in you even when you didn't believe in you that's really cool right
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