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- [00:00]
A
One of the biggest dilemmas that I've personally faced in my pursuit of growing my presence online while building a business has been my desire and passions around many other things and feeling like I would limit myself when showing up in my lane. And I think many people also feel that way. So in this conversation with personal branding expert Christo, we're going to dive into what it means to even have a lane, what it means to pick a fight, as he calls it, to develop that, but also how to integrate the other parts of you that feel very resonant but you may not have the words or skill set to do so. So stick around. It's a deep, deep dive. Can't wait for you to enjoy. You made a post on LinkedIn and you told people to pick a fight. And I think if people didn't read the whole thing, they would assume like, oh, I'm supposed to just go out here and absolutely just dog something or be like a rebel without a cause or whatnot. I'd love for you to expand for us where that notion came from. For you pick a fight. And why is that so important when it comes to showing up online or showing up in general?
- [01:12]
B
I guess as a person who feels worthy, who feels like I know who I am, that I accept it, and I love who I am, I'm more free to speak my opinions. And I find that the more people I speak to, so many people are afraid of speaking up, sharing something that might ruffle a few feathers. I think a lot of it is around their professional concerns. They're afraid if they say something, then they'll lose a client or lose a potential client, or it could be divisive. And I'm not trying to be divisive, but I got to speak my truth into the universe. And then I think it was like a year and a half, two years ago, I came across a video or a post by Mark Manson, the author of the Subtle Art of Not Giving Enough. And he said something like, if you want to be a 1 percenter, and I thought this was about money and wealth. It was just like the top 1% of people are contrarian by nature. They go against the mainstream. They do things that are counterintuitive. And the reason why they do that is because if you do and say and think what everyone else is saying, doing and thinking, what is the point of you saying and doing and thinking anything? So we're not sheeple. We're not all trying to say the exact same things. And he says, well, it's easy to Be a contrarian. Because all you have to do is say something silly like the moon is made of cheese. That's contrarian. And you could do that, but then you just be a fool. So he goes, the trick is to be a correct contrarian, to say something that is different than what everyone else is saying. And to be correct, that's where the sauce is. And you can interpret that many different ways. But the practical part is pick a fight. Whenever you pick a fight, you're going to be contrarian. Now, there are some guidelines I would like to share with people. So don't just go picking a fight with anybody. First of all, it has to be true to you. It has to be something you're deeply passionate about. It should be true, your opinion and not one just to stir up controversy, because that's not fun for anybody. But you want to pick a fight with someone who's bigger, stronger and better funded than you. When you pick a fight with someone who's weaker than you, that's called bullying. And this is the mistake a lot of people make. So I don't care what your political persuasion is. People have a loud box to speak from. And what they do is they pick on marginalized groups who are underrepresented. And it doesn't look good. It looks like you're being very insensitive. But to pick a fight against, say, Big Tobacco or Big Pharma, you're going to be all right. Because they have way more resources than you. They have attorneys, they have strategists and writers and PR people, they have handlers. And it's just you. We talk about this. It's like, what is courage? Courage is deciding to do something despite the overwhelming odds that you're going to fail. And so you need to be courageous. If you know you're going to win the fight, don't pick a fight. That's what we find to be noble and something worth looking up to, a desirable trait. That's why I say pick a fight.
- [04:03]
A
I think I stand with the people that reacted to having professional concerns, to picking a fight. Because hearing this right now from you, what's coming alive for me is for what? Why even do this? How does this connect to me? Building a brand online that then allows me to serve in the areas that I want to serve? How does this connect to my business? Does it always have to connect to my business? What are the ramifications of this? Particularly after things that have happened recently, when you see people are losing their jobs by making comments about their so called Truth, whether it be without getting overly political, Charlie, or Palestine or Trump or all these other things. And then they're coming back online and saying, oh, my God, I just lost my job. So I'm curious, where's the line here when this is necessary, when it's not, and is it even necessary at all when it comes to the professional concern around it?
- [04:59]
B
Let's dismantle that question one part at a time.
- [05:02]
A
It's a lot, huh?
- [05:03]
B
Why write anything? What is the point of writing? Whether it's in your journal for an article or for social media? Why write mo?
- [05:12]
A
I mean, for me personally, I feel like I have a message inside of me that just has to come out that's just me personally, and I have a fundamental belief that there's somebody out there that can only be liberated by hearing it from me specifically, even if me and other people are saying the same thing. So that's where I personally stand.
- [05:29]
B
Is there higher calling then?
- [05:30]
A
For me? Yes. I feel like I'm connected to the divine, and through me, something is being transmitted.
- [05:35]
B
All right, I see it. So we write because we have something stirring in our soul, and I would consider it art. You're an artist with words, and you're trying to communicate an idea, an emotion, some energy, something, so that somewhere you, the sender and then the receiver, can connect, even through the vast space of the Internet, across borders and boundaries and cultures. Your message can hit somebody, and I think that's a really profound thing. What is the point of you saying what everyone else is saying then?
- [06:05]
A
Who said I'm saying what everyone else is saying?
- [06:06]
B
Well, that's what I'm saying. If you don't pick a fight, why write? Why express this thing that's stirring inside of you? Everyone else is already saying it.
- [06:13]
A
Oh, if everyone is already saying it.
- [06:16]
B
Yes.
- [06:17]
A
For me personally, it's because it's alive inside of me. It's my truth. It's what I want to talk about.
- [06:21]
B
Yeah, okay. Do you believe the Internet to be pretty noisy?
- [06:25]
A
Oh, for sure.
- [06:27]
B
I don't have the exact stats, but it's something like in the turn of the century, like, we're talking about the 1800s, 1900s. There aren't a lot of educated people. It could be said that an educated person in England at the time only has the knowledge of a single newspaper. Like, all of what they know can be contained in a single newspaper from front to back. Fast forward to 2025, and now you're like, we have way more knowledge than that an educated person does. So there's a lot of noise that's out there. And if you were to literally see a post that someone else wrote that said exactly the same thing that you did, are you not just contributing to the noise by saying the exact same thing?
- [07:05]
A
Again, if we're saying the exact same thing, yeah.
- [07:08]
B
Which a lot of people do, they just regurgitate.
- [07:11]
A
Many people will regurgitate, but many people are also saying the same thing from different lenses, different perspectives. Yeah, like you talking about personal brand from a very specific lens, other people talk about it from a very specific lens, so on and so forth.
- [07:25]
B
Right. So here's the thing. Let's just take reality at face value here. I would be willing to wager with you that there's no empirical evidence of this just yet, but we could probably do some research on this. I would guess that 70 to 80% of the content that's out there is just regurgitation with very little adjustment. And it's probably being accelerated by AI. Now people are not even thinking anymore. They're just like, write for me. And they just write. And then they don't know to edit it, they don't want to curate it. They just want stuff out there. Because this is what everyone else is doing. And the problem with anything is if you do what everyone else is doing, you're going to get what everyone else is getting. And if you think about it, look behind me and look behind you. You have some books. What percentage of the population have gotten to a point in which they have clear enough ideas and have the follow through, actually write a book? What do you think there are eight some billion people on planet Earth? How many authors are there, you think?
- [08:19]
A
Probably very low compared to the population.
- [08:21]
B
Probably you think like 1%, we'll call it that.
- [08:25]
A
I know if you have a PhD for example, you're 1% of the 10% of the world. So there's that.
- [08:31]
B
It's like 0.1% now.
- [08:33]
A
Yeah, it's like 0.1% of the world have a PhD. So who's written a book? I'm going to assume less than that.
- [08:39]
B
Less than that. So now we're sitting here thinking, okay, and those are the people who write because it's something stirring in their soul. They have a point of view, they're well read, well researched, and they want to add to the canon of human knowledge. They want to contribute to that. And so I kind of look at it from that lens. If you're going to write something, you're going to do something. What is your take on this? And I can tell you right now, just by my own experience scrolling through the the IG feed, so much of his regurgitated content, even from so called thought leaders and publishers of content, I'm like, I already read that from somebody else. This is just a different skin on it. When I say different skin, I mean you change the color, you change the typeface, but you really haven't added anything to it. They're the same stories that are being regurgitated over and over again. So somebody researched the original story, wrote about it, spent the time, and now everyone else, and I put myself in there, is regurgitating that content. So why even write? We're just contributing to the noise that's out there and we fool ourselves to think that I'm learning about myself, my thoughts, and I'm helping people, which I'm not. I do it because this is what I'm told that I need to do as a quote unquote thought leader. So that's one of the problems. Problem number two is if you're writing as a means to grow your business, I don't call that branding at all. And I just can't emphasize this enough. If you're writing to grow your business, that's called marketing. And if you're a marketing major, marketing, communications director, cmo, by all means, this is what you're supposed to be doing. And if you're not, it's not in your title, it's not your responsibility, then what are you doing? You're using marketing in the disguise of thought leadership because your primary focus isn't thought leadership at all. It's to pitch your offer. It's to call people to take action, to buy a product or a service from you. And that I think is also what's wrong with the world. I can't get into my DMs anymore because they're all marketing, pretending to be a genuine human connection. And I think for maybe comedic purposes, I might want to video capture every single message that's coming on Instagram. It's all the same. Big fan of your content. First of all, don't follow me. Kind of interesting. Big fan of your content. I noticed you're a coach. Would you be opposed to tripling your revenue per month? I'm a professional appointment setter. This is what I do. Copy, paste, copy, paste, copy paste, over and over and over again. What are we doing? I think human nature is that we want to work, make the least effort to do something to get a result that we want. It requires discipline. It requires Intellectual, rigorous. Go and think about what you think about and find a way to say it. I'm not against AI at all. I use AI all the time. But I want to make sure it represents what I want to say, and some of it has my DNA in it. I need to read this and say, do I agree with this? Is this said better than what I could say otherwise? What am I doing here? I'm just contributing to the noise. So, again, I don't want to mix these two worlds up because you had asked. Well, people start speaking their opinion, they lost their job or they're losing clients. Well, were you writing marketing copy? Probably.
- [11:55]
A
Do you mean were you positioned initially as someone who writes marketing copy? And now that you're sharing your opinion, well, naturally it's going to mess up your business stuff, because what the. Is that what you mean?
- [12:08]
B
If you were. Yes. If you were expressing your opinions on lots of things, sharing thought leadership and doing some form of public journaling, well, of course you're going to share your opinions. What is the point if you don't? You're going to speak about deeply personal things. Hardships, triumphs, success, challenges. You're going to share stories about the people that you meet and what you learn, but that's not what's happening. So people are like, well, nine out of ten times it's marketing stuff, and then Palestine, Israel. Charlie Kirk, right, left. What is going on? It's coming out of left field now. If you have been a civil rights activist and that's what you post about, well, why would anybody be turned off? This is what they expect to see from you. So you'll notice in my feed, and somebody sent me a DM recently said, I've been following your content for quite some time, and I'm so glad that you just talk about ideas. I don't even know what religion, if you are, I don't know what political leaning you are. And I like it like that. That's because that's who I am. In private, I'll tell you about my opinions and lots of things. But in public, I'm here to help people achieve a goal, achieve a result. And I don't want to let my political musings get in the way of that. But if I'm a political commentator, I'm a political junkie. I need to talk about politics.
- [13:28]
A
Can you speak to this a little bit, the depth of this? Because I feel like those who know probably just recognized a key element of branding that you just mentioned kind of as speaking. But I'm just, I'm trying to channel the person who's like, you're telling me to pick a fight. You're telling me to be authentic online. You're telling me to share my thoughts, feelings and what's alive inside of me. But then you just said, well, yeah, but I am someone who is here to serve somebody on my platform, therefore I'm selective on what I share. I hate to say it, for me, even hearing this, it just feels like two conflicting ideas. And maybe I'm understanding it because it's like, be authentic, share yourself. And then when I do, it's like, oh, wait, hold on, hold on. You're, you're supposed to be pretty, you know, palatable man, like, you know, accepting all this kind of stuff. So can you speak to that? I don't even know if I'm making sense, but that's what's coming to me right now.
- [14:19]
B
No, it's making sense. It's also because if you are listening with very biased ears and thinking about your own life and not listening to what I'm saying, you come to similar conclusions. So I have to like, clarify and appreciate the opportunity to clarify. Well, I pick fights with all kinds of things, as you may know. For example, the belief that worth is tied to time and effort. That's an old model, an old idea. I'm picking a fight with anyone who calls themselves a personal branding expert who's putting out content to teach you how to market. Those are ideas I want to fight in the realm of ideas and philosophy. And if I was, I had a stronger opinion about some of these other things, I would talk about them too. Well, here's an example. Okay, the future is an education company. Why do I need to create an education company when so many exist? Well, I have to kind of figure out what everyone's doing and see if what I'm doing is any bit different. If I'm doing the exact same thing, I just should go work for them. And that's the thing. So I've said to people many times, the future is like private art school without the crippling debt. I'm picking a fight. I'm picking a fight against so called gurus who are regurgitating info products based on knowledge they've not acquired through experience. Where are the receipts? These are things I deeply care about and things I've been talking about for quite some time. I'm picking a fight against the trolls who say this can't be done. So if you read a post, if you watch a video, if you're not feeling either I'm all in on what Chris is saying or I'm all against it, then you're not really finding a lane into which you can all want to be clear about that. And you know what we don't need? We don't need a lot of reckless opinions being thrown out there. Every time a logo comes up, a rebrand, 99.9% of the amateur designers start speaking up. Notice very few professional designers say, I hate this. This is stupid. Why don't they just go with that?
- [16:16]
A
That's very true. Now that you say that out loud. The thought leaders of the design space, the ones actually doing the work, are never coming out, and very rarely, unless it's like, astronomically a fail or a win, and then they'll speak on it.
- [16:32]
B
Well, sometimes, like that cracker barrel thing that's gone all over the Internet, everybody's got an opinion. And you know what? Everyone's got an A hole too, and I don't want to hear or see either. And the reason why the professional, the luminaries of the design space, why they say something, it's not because it's astronomically bad or good. It's because the media is picking up on this now, and they'll be interviewed by legitimate design magazines saying, we'd like your thoughts on this. And what they have to do is they have to do research and they have to give it considerable thought. They have to look at it from multiple angles. As a practitioner working with clients like that, what the global concerns are in terms of the market share and what's going on in the business, things that most creatives don't really think about, unfortunately. They're merely commenting on gut instinct and emotional reaction to purely aesthetic forms. And so the classic is, why isn't this a perfect circle? That just says volumes about the lack of education in the design community. Because optically, it doesn't look like a circle when it's a circle. Mathematically it's not, but optically it is. So it's just saying, you didn't go to school. You don't understand things like the Romans, the way they designed massive monuments. They understood, like, if you made it perfectly straight, it would look bent, so they would bend it the other way, so that when you looked at it, it looked straight again. They've known this for 2000 years. So every Yahoo, everybody who's got a computer and a keyboard, they get at it. And I don't want that either. So it's during the Black Lives Matter movement, people are like, you need to speak up on this. Well, this is not my lane. But I felt so compelled. I was so emotionally distraught over what was going on in America. The seemingly kind of lack of civil, what is it? Civil rights, civil justice. It was just bothering me. So finally I caved in. I wrote something, made a post, and you know what happened? People in the black and brown community said, you don't know enough about this, don't say anything. So I was like, what? Yeah, you don't, because you have a big voice and a big platform. There are way more educated people about this who deeply care and they need to be heard. So we'd appreciate if you stayed out of it. And I took that to heart. It's like, you're right. Because from the outside it could look like I'm just jumping on some kind of bandwagon. I'm virtue signaling. I don't think about these things on a daily basis. I'm not well researched. I don't know the first five or ten books I'm supposed to be reading on this subject. I do not understand the African American plight as well as someone who is in it, of the culture and who studies it, who talks about it, whose mission it is to kind of right some wrongs. And so they're right. I need to stay out of it because what I do is I suck the oxygen out of the room for people who are needing it. That's why I very rarely opine on anything. That's not something that I put considerable thought and energy and resources against. Doesn't make any sense.
- [19:38]
A
So to circle back to kind of the catalyst for this answer, help me make sure that I'm understanding you correctly. It's not that you shouldn't share the things that you love or the things that are alive inside of you or the things that you want to talk about. But I keep hearing you say, understand your lane, number one. Number two, where have you had significant experience? From self and also from studying. And also the last thing is like, speak on that more, expand on that more, versus just constantly picking whatever is hot or speaking to, I guess. And again, I'm just sharing what's coming up for me as I hear this, because I agree. And then simultaneously I'm like, okay, this is great, but what if I'm a multi hyphenate, but what if I have evolved? But what if that is important to me, but I don't have a lot of experience in it, but I want to share my perspective. It feels to me. And again, I'm Channeling the parts of me that are like, you know, activated right now and also thinking maybe there's somebody else thinking about this. Are you now telling me like, yo, stay in my lane. Be authentic in your lane, but don't fucking. You know what I'm saying? Don't. Don't reach beyond the lane. Stay in the niche. Stay in the lane. Stay in the thought leadership that you're well on.
- [21:01]
B
Are you asking yourself this question out loud? Do you want to speak on things you know nothing about?
- [21:07]
A
I don't want to speak about things that I know nothing about.
- [21:10]
B
Okay, let's rule that out right now.
- [21:11]
A
That's a rule. That's great. Yes. That's a rule.
- [21:13]
B
Okay.
- [21:14]
A
I don't want to speak about anything I don't know anything about, nor do I want to speak about anything that I'm not passionate about. Because at that point, it's a facade.
- [21:20]
B
Those are good rules to live by. And do you think the vast majority of people out there speak on things they know nothing about?
- [21:27]
A
I do not think that the vast majority of people speak on things they know nothing about, but I do believe that the vast majority of people can be passionate about multiple things.
- [21:36]
B
Well, I disagree with you. See? So now we're going to pick a fight. Just look all over the Internet, man.
- [21:40]
A
Okay, fair.
- [21:42]
B
Are we being real? They do these bits, right, Whether you're on the left or the right.
- [21:46]
A
This is fascinating.
- [21:48]
B
So what the right does is they find some college campus kids and they put a microphone on them. What should we do? And they'll say, some pretty left ideas. And they ask two questions, and the people fall apart. Then they get really upset. The latter with Crowder, is kind of like that. He sits down and says, prove me wrong. And people are just all feelings and gut, and they just go out there and then blabber on, and he'll cite some quotes and some statistics, and they can't even respond to that. It's embarrassing. I believe their point of view, but it's just like, have you read anything? Have you done anything about this? What's going on? And the opposite is true. You'll get. I think his name is Jordan, and he's on the Daily show, and he goes out into the red MAGA places. He's like, so what do we think? We hate people who commit sa. Like, yeah, we hate those people, right? Yeah, we hate them. It's like, well, your guy has been convicted of.
- [22:46]
A
Oh, I've seen these clips. Yes, yes, yes.
- [22:48]
B
Right. Jordan Kelper, I believe his name Something like that.
- [22:51]
A
Training the logic. It's like, well, if you believe this, then why do you agree with this?
- [22:54]
B
Yeah. And he only. It only takes him two or three questions. Because they say the most outrageous things. Oh, we hate them because they're. They're immigrants. I'm like, our first lady's an immigrant. Well, not her, you know, so people say things all the time without thinking that they don't know anything about. It's because we'd rather be a nation, or at least a culture of opinions, than of facts. You're supposed to find facts to form an opinion. What people do is they formed an opinion, and they look for the facts to support their opinion. It's kind of gross. So really ask yourself your question, and then you'll see, like, oh, yeah, you're right.
- [23:29]
A
I guess in real time, I'm realizing my own bias. And this has to do with training and just why align with you? For example, I'm okay with saying I don't know with some things. So I just realized. You just checked my own bias. Like, I wouldn't share about something I don't know, or I'm not actively researching or I'm not, like, sticking my toe in or whatever it might be. How are we to combat the feeling of being authentic while feeling pressured to be in a lane? I feel like the two go against each other. From how I'm hearing from you right now, speak to that for me?
- [24:09]
B
Not at all. All right. First of all, there's no pressure. Do whatever the hell you want. You don't need to listen to me. I'm not telling you to do anything. I'm just sharing my ideas. So if these ideas excite you, if they clarify things for you, then please, by all means, try to do it. If they don't, I'm not for you. I'm totally cool with that. I'm not telling you I have an exclusive lock on the truth. I just have my truth, and I'm going to share it with you when we talk about our lane. What is our lane? Our lane could be really wide, like the 405, or it could be like the one freeway which is really narrow. And that's up to you. That depends on a lot of your life experiences, what you're passionate about and what you want to talk about. So we can use passion as one metric of. Should you be talking about this now? We all have different definitions of passion, and that's totally okay. For example, I like fishing. I'm very passionate about it. Most of my life revolves around things, around the water and pulling things out of it. Am I studied in this? I don't know. I don't have a bachelor's degree on angling. I don't I know a thing or two. I'm very passionate about it. So can I talk about it? Sure. Do I need somebody's permission to talk about it? No. I can do whatever I want. So if you want to speak about your passion about collecting Barbie dolls. Cool. Do that. Find a way to integrate that into the thing you want to be known for. What we're trying to do is. Well, at least for me, I'm always trying to work on self development, mo a constant improver. So I'm trying to grow the main trunk of my tree so it's stout and it's strong and it's got deep roots. Now there may be branches of interest on that tree, but what I don't want to do is have a multi trunk tree where some wind blows and the whole thing falls over. So I'm going to continue building on that trunk. There are branches of interest and they support the main trunk. They give it energy, they feed it, and that's how I look at it. So you can be your authentic self. Your authentic self can be complicated. It can be very nuanced, multicultural, very layered, multifaceted. Entirely up to you. I don't think they're in conflict at all.
- [26:20]
A
I love the tree analogy and I love the challenge. And I wrote this as a challenge because I think this is where many people get stuck. Try to integrate it into what you want to be known for. I think there's two elements of stuckness here. I think many people don't know what they want to be known for. And then they equate that into limitation or niching or a lack of freedom. Then the other thing is maybe they do have something that they want to be known for and they're even very clear about that. They have a desire to integrate, similar to you fishing, but they don't know how. They don't know how to integrate it in a way that moves their body of work forward around what they want to be known for. I don't want to make this a conversation about like finding oneself and what you want to be known for. I'd love for you to speak to the second half. If I know what I want to be known for and there's other things that are leaves of this bigger tree, but I don't know how to integrate them, how might one do that? Or what does one have to Begin learning to do that effectively.
- [27:23]
B
All right, I want to talk about something slightly different first because it just occurred to me, you know, a shark, let's say a great white swimming through the ocean, it eats things and then there's like a little leftover stuff stuck on his body. So there's these little sucker fish that are forming a symbiotic relationship with the shark. The shark's cool with them because what they do is they clean off all the little bits. That's symbiotic. They support each other. The shark does the killing. The little sucker fishes, they keep them clean. Now you also see these ones where there's a bird or a squirrel or something and it's got these parasites burrowed into its face and they pull them out. It's a parasitic relationship. That means for one organism to survive, the other one will perish. You can look at your interests like this. You're the organism supporting everything. If you find things that are side hustles or passions or other things, ask yourself, is it symbiotic? Do they support each other or is it parasitic? Because when you start to dilute your attention and your resources and your energy, the shark doesn't live and the sucker fish doesn't live. It becomes like the other one, they don't live well. And you can see, as far as I can tell, the main animal is suffering. And when they pull these bugs out, these like flies that burrow into their bodies, they're feeding off the main system and they eventually kill the host, which could lead to its own death. But it ain't good.
- [28:58]
A
Ground this in an example that you've literally gone through for your own thought, leadership, personal brand. This parasitic symbiotic filter that you're using.
- [29:10]
B
The complexity of life is such that sometimes you're really into other interests because you're multi hyphenate and you can't find the way that they integrate. And that's totally okay, because as long as you have the energy to do your main thing, all is good. It's when it distracts from that, when your business is going sideways, when you're working 80 hours a week and you're becoming a stranger to your own family, that's clearly parasitic relationship. So for me, I studied graphic design. I built my career on graphic design. I'm also interested in mixed martial arts. So I'll watch MMA on the weekends, I'll go to fights. I can manage that. And eventually what happens is we wind up doing promos for Spike TV for the Ultimate Fighter TV show, for Many seasons. Well, guess what? Those two things found a way to come together on the side. I get business coaching for 13 years. I'm learning about business concepts about pricing, negotiation, how to manage people, the delegation of work, the value of time. And that helps to support my main business, which is I run a creative agency. The relationship is very clear. But there's a third branch to this tree that we don't see until much, much later. The third branch of this tree is all of a sudden one day in 2014, I start making content on YouTube where now I'm a YouTuber for lack of a better term. And how do these other experiences support this? Well, number one, at that point, I think I'm into the professional agency entrepreneur role for probably close to 20 years at that point. And what am I going to make content on? I'm going to make content on the things I've done in the last 20 years. But because part of that career was making commercials and music videos, I also knew how to produce videos so I can be on camera talent and behind the scenes camera talent. Those two things support each other. Then we bring in this third dimension, which is I've got business coaching and so I don't know how many years I'm into that. So all these things coalesce into who I am. There are other components which I'm going to stack into this. But I can show you now how my design career, my entrepreneurial experience, my business coaching and training, and specifically my experience in producing music videos and commercials, I know how to do this. So back in the day in 2014, I was joking with my friends. I think we're going to be the most overproduced video channel on YouTube because we have multiple cameras, we have a stage, we have crew who know how to do things. Unfortunately, I wasn't very good at hosting the content part. But we can outspend these YouTubers who are just doing things in their bedroom. They were better because they knew how to be better on camera talent. So their audiences grew much, much faster. So that was a skill I was yet to learn.
- [32:08]
A
Speak to me about when it didn't work and you had the discernment to recognize that it was parasitic because I think many people might not be able to see it that way. Like the way you just painted it sounded like it was beautifully orchestrated to happen the way that it happened. I know it wasn't. I have a lot of exposure to you. I know the self work, I know the personal development, I know the investments, I know. But I also know that you are a pretty objective, pretty discerning and clear individual. So if a moment that looks like it could be symbiotic, you can suss out this might be parasitic. You don't even let yourself go that far. Or maybe sometimes it's experimental, I don't know. But I'd love to hear a reflection from you on when that has happened.
- [32:53]
B
Well, in 2014, I was running two companies blind, and at that point it was called the School later to Become the Future. And I only have so much time and resources, though. I told everyone at blind, hey, I'm going to disappear for a little bit. I cannot do both. I'm going to try to build a new ship. Your job is to keep the ship afloat that we're already in. And they did the best they could without my leadership, management and active involvement. But at that point, I've hired very good people, business people, creative people, to run the company. And I don't need to be as involved. There are systems and processes in place, and so we continue to make money while the other company lost money. So it was a parasite, if you think about it, because it was draining resources, money, space, time and energy from the main company, which people didn't fully understand. In fact, my business coach at that time said, why don't we focus on the thing that's making the most money for us and not this other thing? What is this other thing? I said, I don't even know what it is yet because we're clearly not making any money on it and we're not gaining famous anytime fast. What are we doing here? But I'm usually a guy who's led by my curiosity. But you know what? Unlike most people, I have systems in place. That doesn't cause this complete shutdown and meltdown of the main company, which is
- [34:12]
A
key, by the way, to note. It's key because at that point you're able to allocate bandwidth, you're able to take risk in a way that doesn't fry you and fry the main thing.
- [34:24]
B
Yeah, so I reappear, reemerge when necessary. Otherwise I was going back in the lab, cooking up content, trying to figure out how to do this thing called YouTube. And if you remember 2014 to about 2018, when we're still figuring stuff out, there were very few professional people who were doing what we're doing. They're mostly amateurs who love this idea that they could be famous and they can celebrate their talent and share it online. This is like OG YouTubers.
- [34:55]
A
Well, how does that relate to.
- [34:57]
B
Well, the new YouTubers are people like Dan Martell, Alex Hermosi, Cody Sanchez, Mel Robbins, people who are accomplished people who have a lot of resources, who are putting the kind of money and energy into the space because what they've realized, which we figured out pretty early on, building a strong personal brand is an incredible lever to have.
- [35:20]
A
So you're saying you were experimenting with this before it was popular?
- [35:23]
B
No, I'm not saying that at all. That sounds too self important. I'm saying we were in a space where zigging or zagging, depending on how you look at it, when there weren't a lot of professionals in it spending our time, resource figuring things out. It was kind of unknown at that time. And that, that did help us out a lot because we're a singular voice in a space where most people were still focused on their primary business, didn't have the luxury to build a secondary business. And we were able to do that. And now it seems like pretty standard operating protocol for people that if you're a business person, you start to dedicate resources and money and team members towards building content. In fact, you and I are part of different masterminds and groups and a couple hundred people in these groups spending a pretty significant amount of money trying to build their online presence, they're doing it the wrong way. Sorry. But they are doing something because they do realize the same thing.
- [36:20]
A
So you've given me kind of a filter and a lens to look at, symbiotic versus parasitic and your own examples. What else can you teach us or speak to us on? For those that have something they're good at, that they're known for, they're willing to pick a fight, they're ready to pick a fight, but they don't know how to integrate these other interests or these other elements of who they are or these other passions like you have been able to with mixed martial arts and at the agency time, music video fishing. Now with how you write and using it as an example, speak to us on the integration piece. So people aren't fragmented.
- [36:56]
B
Well, I don't think you need to be integrated on day one. This is a journey that's 11 years. So when that trunk, the main trunk of what you want to be known for, the thing you have deep passion and expertise in, just focus on that. We don't have to be all things at once. And I'm finding out over time I can continue to add layers to the main trunk. And once you've built up a sturdy enough tree, you can do all Kinds of stuff. You could say this, you don't want to build a treehouse on a tree that's not strong enough to support the weight. Also, you don't want to build a tree house on a tree. That by building a tree house on a tree, you cause the trees to die. Lots of problems with that. But when the tree is strong enough, you can build all kinds of things on it. It's not going to hurt the tree if you build it the right way. And the example here is in the last year and a half, two years, I've found another area of interest. Fashion, personal style. Now, if I came on the scene on day one, started talking about personal style, people are like, you don't know nothing about this. And truth of the matter is, I don't. Why would I follow you? Why would I listen to you? You don't know about stitching. You don't know where that fabric comes from. You don't know the main manufacturers of all the luxury houses. You don't know the history of why or where this brand came from. You don't. And they'd be right. And I'd be like every other Yahoo out there, opining about things I know nothing about. And so I have my main trunk. Pricing, communications, personal branding. Then I add on little things and people are like, I think that supports the main thing doesn't take away. The trunk is strong enough. I can add other things to it.
- [38:29]
A
I love this conversation. And it's super nuanced and super layered, in my opinion, at least how I'm receiving it, because I think you're speaking to both those that are in the beginning and those that are seasoned and want to leverage this concept of personal branding. What mission are you on? Pick a fight as it relates to that mission, what I just heard, and correct me if I'm wrong, or anything that I missed, but if you're in the beginning, the objective is get good at the thing.
- [38:55]
B
Get known for the thing you want to be known for. That's it.
- [38:58]
A
Build the trunk. Experiment. Gain clarity through experience and study on what it is you want to be known for. On the other hand, what I think is profound is do not shy away from the little things that you enjoy. Whether for you, it started off as a seed to fashion, and then you got really good at it, or communication or even therapy and spirituality and all that kind of work that you integrate into personal branding. And then for me, it feels like flavor. I think you just gave a lot of people permission. For those that are later in their career, and wanting to add these things into their world of what they're known for. Because I think what happens for many of these people is they're like, well, I can't do that, or I can't speak on that, or I can't bring that in because it's. It just will never work. So what I just heard is you gave them permission in a way that feels digestible, at least.
- [39:53]
B
Great. I don't think any of us should be asking for permission to do anything. Do whatever makes your heart happy as long as you don't hurt anybody. Do whatever makes your heart happy. This is what makes me happy. So I think I saw a piece earlier, prior to our conversation, about they did this experiment in Japan for teachers. They banned the word good. So you couldn't say, good morning. You couldn't say, good job, good work. So they would just have to describe things for the way they are. That was a blue project, that was a red project, that was a green project, objectively. And what they realized something is over a very short period of time, I think it was a month or two, the students had deeper conversations with each other. Arguments lasted shorter. They had greater confidence in speaking and doing things because they removed external validating force from their lives. They learned to look inward for their own validation. Kind of fascinating. So it's like, I don't want to give anybody permission to do anything. Do whatever you want. If you want me to give you permission, I will. But let's move away from this need for someone to tell you it's okay, someone to tell you it's good or bad, because that creates a relationship that's not healthy. I believe that's a parasitic relationship, not a symbiotic one. Because you post something and you're like, this was true to me. And people don't like it. What's that going to do to your idea of worth? Big facts?
- [41:20]
A
We've talked about this at length. You start to distort it, dilute it, filter it, Feel like it's not meant to be out there because you didn't receive the recognition and the validation that you're so accustomed to receiving or that you thought you were gonna receive, which is a much deeper thing that we have to look at, which is, did I need it at all? Did I not? Why did I. Why did that come up for me?
- [41:44]
B
So we have to shift from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation. What makes us happy? What gives us joy, and do that now. I think you said it in the most positive way, Chris. I think you just gave us permission to do that. It's like, let's reframe that. I just shared my point of view. If I articulated ideas that you felt in your heart but couldn't say or to write, then perhaps I helped you find the words. And I'm okay with that part. But the last thing I want to do is tell people to become dependent on me for their permission slip to do whatever they want. That would be kind of antithetical to everything I stand for.
- [42:21]
A
Well, they would just have to pick a fight with you at that point,
- [42:23]
B
and I'm happy to fight with you.