Success Story with Scott D. Clary

Episode: Chris Do – Emmy Award-Winning Designer | Stop Hiding Behind Your Work
Date: October 24, 2025
Guest: Chris Do (@theChrisDo)
Host: Scott D. Clary

Episode Overview

This episode features Chris Do, creative entrepreneur, Emmy Award-winning designer, and founder of The Futur. Scott and Chris dive deep into the inner journey of creativity, entrepreneurship, personal branding, and the power (and pitfalls) of building an authentic persona in the digital age. Chris draws on personal stories and decades of creative and business experience, challenging mainstream thinking around success, risk, money, influence, and visibility.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Nature of Creativity & Childhood Survival

[00:05], [01:39], [03:05]

• Most creative adults are "children who've survived." Society often pressures individuals to suppress their unique qualities to fit in, but true creatives manage to retain their curiosity and imagination.
• The archetype of a creative is often a "gifted misfit"—someone unable to follow the expected path, sometimes thanks to supportive teachers or family members who encourage their individuality.
  • Chris Do [01:39]:
    "If you remember back into your early primary school days, the kid who was like painting and getting stuff on his face was the outcast and was shunned... The creative people are the misfits who... retain that curiosity... and live in their imagination."
• The importance of "permission"—often creatives need to see someone relatable in their desired field to truly consider it a possible path for themselves.

2. Architecting and Rediscovering Creativity

[05:00], [05:30]

• You don't always need to architect creativity if you’re listening to content like this—you're already tuning in. The first step is giving yourself permission to explore what’s been repressed.
  • Chris Do [05:30]:
    "There's a frequency that's being transmitted that only some people can hear… Maybe we don't need so much to reverse engineer or architect it so much as to give them permission to explore this other side that they've repressed for a really long time."
• Creativity isn’t reserved for traditional artists. Design is about moving from the current state to a preferred one; everyone who solves problems with new actions is a designer.

3. Career Inflection Points & Giving Yourself Permission

[07:44], [08:07], [10:24]

• Chris didn’t fully embrace being a creative professionally until seeing a real-life designer at 18.
• A pivotal life change came after 20 years in the industry: financial safety allowed Chris to ask, “Who am I supposed to be now?” Spurred by encouragement from his wife and an old friend (Jose Caballer), he began creating educational content and transitioned into education and entrepreneurship.

4. Navigating Entrepreneurship and Risk

[13:25], [13:50]

• Entrepreneurship is inherently risky—a risk tolerance is crucial.
  • Chris Do [13:50]:
    "Safe is risky and risky is safe. If you want to go the safe route, you're going to have a very predictable job, but those jobs can go away… So I want to let people know there's only so much you can do to remove the risk about entrepreneurship because entrepreneurship rewards people who want to take risk."
• Having a financial cushion makes pivots easier, but some risk is irreducible; you have to be comfortable with discomfort to pursue entrepreneurship.

5. Pricing, Value, and the "Starving Artist" Myth

[16:22], [17:26], [22:39]

• Many beginners undercharge due to imposter syndrome and lack of comparative data.
• Chris advocates for "range finding"—testing higher prices until you find resistance, and treating pricing as a positioning tool.
  • Chris Do [17:26]: "Pricing is positioning. Whenever we look at comparable objects, anything that has a higher price has a perceived higher value. That's the bottom line."
• The “starving artist” mindset is counterproductive; if you want better clients, you must charge more to attract clients who value your work.

6. Defining and Demystifying Personal Branding

[32:40], [33:00], [35:59]

• Most people misuse the term "personal brand." Designing a logo isn't branding; branding is the total experience and the gut feeling a person has about you or your company.
  • Chris Do [33:00]: "Brand has become an elevated term... but because they feel denigrated that they're calling themselves a logo designer, they start to call themselves a branding expert, which they're not."
• Corporate brands and personal brands are fundamentally different. Corporations craft inoffensive, consensus-driven personas; a true personal brand is raw, authentic, and usually divisive.
• True connection comes from individuals, not corporate accounts—people fall in love with personalities, not faceless companies.

7. Authenticity vs. Persona: Risks & Rewards

[41:07], [44:37]

• There’s a growing trend of people building "fake" or curated personal brands, carefully avoiding strong opinions to safeguard earning potential.
• Chris’s advice: Business brands can and should exist separately from your personal self—but unlocking real connection and value comes from showing up authentically, even at the risk of alienating some people.
  • Chris Do [44:37]: "The stronger you are as who you're supposed to be in this world, the stronger it creates this filter to attract the right kind of people and repel the wrong kind of people."

8. Building an Audience and the Role of Social Proof

[63:39], [65:03], [71:31]

• Social following is the new currency and has replaced traditional resumes in many contexts.
  • Chris Do [65:03]: "Everything that you do… benefits on an exponential level if they have a really strong personal brand that is backed by a lot of social proof, period."
• Don’t make the relationship transactional—goodwill built through value-driven, genuine content is what gets you opportunities, not just follower count.
• Audience building accelerates opportunity (venture capital, deal flow, press) but only works when paired with substance and already-earned "receipts."

9. The Aesthetics and Strategy of Personal Brand

[52:22], [56:57]

• Chris intentionally curates his visual look (funky glasses, jewelry) as an extension of his brand, but stresses it is to foster conversation and connection rather than to manufacture celebrity.
  • Chris Do [57:01]: "People find a reason to talk to you because they look across… Duck, duck, duck, duck. There's a goose right there. Let me go talk to the goose."

10. Monetization, Brand Deals, and Integrity

[76:37], [79:17], [79:53]

• Leverage audience trust with care; don’t compromise for a quick payout.
• Chris advocates delaying monetization to build “karmic equity.” The longer you hold off, the greater the returns when you do monetize.
  • Chris Do [79:53]: "Delay the ask or monetization for as long as you can… because what's going to happen is you can do much bigger deals 2, 3, 4, 5 years into this…"
• Only promote products or businesses you genuinely use and care about.

11. Major Misconceptions in Personal Branding

[82:32], [82:46]

• Personal branding is NOT advertising. People are adept at detecting even well-disguised sales agendas, which quickly erode trust and value.
• True influence is built through value-first content, not thinly veiled sales funnels.

12. Parting Wisdom

[88:52]

• If Chris could go back and advise his 20-year-old self:
  "It's going to be really uncomfortable. You're not going to want to do it. There's no proof that it's going to work. But create content as soon as you can, even when you don't know what you're doing. Because those early years are very important to help you become the person that you're supposed to be in this world."

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Self-Expression & Acceptance:
  "I'd rather be hated for being me than to be loved for not being me." – Chris Do [61:24]

• On Risk:
  "Safe is risky and risky is safe." – Chris Do [13:50]

• On Social Proof:
  "Social following is the new currency in the 21st century. The attention economy is the economy." – Chris Do [65:03]

• On Brand Integrity:
  "Building a personal brand is not advertising... ask yourself this question: Does it smell like an ad? Because if it does, your audience is much smarter than you give them credit for." – Chris Do [82:46]

• On Creativity:
  "Creatives are the misfits who didn't see that or could not follow along despite their best efforts and survived through adulthood to kind of retain that curiosity." – Chris Do [01:39]

Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Topic | |----------|--------------------------------------------------------| | 00:05 | Surviving childhood & creativity’s roots | | 03:05 | The role of “gifted misfits” and importance of support | | 05:30 | Permission vs. architecture of creativity | | 08:07 | Chris’s inflection point—embracing the creative path | | 13:50 | Risk and reality of entrepreneurship | | 17:26 | How to think about pricing & value as a creative | | 32:40 | Demystifying personal branding | | 44:37 | Why authenticity matters for attracting opportunity | | 52:22 | The role of aesthetics in personal branding | | 65:03 | Social proof and audience-building as new currency | | 71:31 | Audience vs. product—the balance in entrepreneurship | | 79:53 | Monetization with integrity: the “karmic equity” effect| | 82:46 | Red flags in personal branding—don’t be an ad | | 88:52 | Advice to 20-year-old self: content over comfort |

Final Takeaways

• Be Authentic: True connection (and business value) flows from raw, honest self-expression. Don’t curate your persona to please everyone.
• Value First: Serve your community, delay monetizing, and wealth—financial and social—will follow.
• Brand is Who You Are: An authentic personal brand is about living and sharing your truth, not mimicking corporate marketing.
• Reframe Risk: A meaningful, creative life is by necessity uncomfortable and uncertain. Embrace it.
• Audience = Leverage: Build your substance first, but recognize that a strong social profile can exponentially amplify your opportunities when paired with real results.

Where to Find Chris Do

• All socials: @theChrisDo
• Education, courses, community: The Futur (spelled "futur", no “e”)

End Note

Chris’s compelling journey—from doodling in notebooks, to Emmy-winning designer, to global educator—shows that “hiding behind your work” isn’t the path to impact. Instead, discovering and expressing your authentic voice is the first step to true creative and entrepreneurial success.