335 - Vulnerability Meets Growth Strategies - With Eric Siu - The Futur with Chris Do

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, everyone.
Welcome back to the future.
This is Rich Cardona.
I'm Chris's podcast strategist.
And today is going to be anepisode that's a throwback.
This is when Chris guessed iton his good friend Eric Sue's Leveling
up podcast, where they'regoing to talk about building personal
brands, how to createauthentic connections online.
And most importantly, andsomething no one talks about is lessons

(00:21):
learned from running a mastermind.
This may actually help youdetermine if you want to be part
of one, if you want to start one.
The pros and cons, all thegood things.

(00:43):
What else goes into buildingthat good personal brand?
Like, there's also, like, thelook, right?
What else?
Yeah, there's parts to that.
So let's start with themeatiest to, like, the lightest,
right?
If you're talking aboutpersonal branding, and I have a very
different view than how mostpeople talk about it because I think
the word branding is super popular.
So, like, well, corporate branding.
And then if you have any kindof following, they're like, well,

(01:04):
I have a personal brand.
Do you?
Who are you?
What do you stand for?
Can I predict what you'regoing to do next?
Who are you in real life, onand off camera?
That's your personal brand.
In order for me to get to knowthat, you actually have to show something
where you're actually avulnerable, real human being.
And so few people are ready todo that.
They're always holding thingsback because they're fearful of judgment.

(01:26):
They're fearful of, like,backlash or being canceled or, like,
people like that version of me.
And maybe they're right.
So you kind of live thisdouble life.
There's the real you that youshow that face to a few people in
your world, and there's thissuper fake version of you that lives
online.
So I don't care if you have300,000 followers.
I don't care if you have 10million followers.

(01:46):
If you're not showing what'sreal, I don't know what your personal
brand is.
And if there isn't thisirrational emotional connection that
your audience and yourcommunity have with you that they're
willing to bat for you, thatthey're willing to do anything to
help you, then I don't reallyknow if you have a personal brand.
Got it.
You're a content creator.
You know how to work with algorithm.

(02:07):
Like, but who are you?
And we need to know that.
And so I've even fallen downthis trap myself because I think,
hey, if I talk about me, it'sreally just not that interesting.
I need to keep teaching.
I need to keep teaching.
But you know what?
Post blow up when I'm like,here's who I am as a person and here's
why I do what I do.
And so there has to be that mix.

(02:27):
And so when you tell apersonal story, you bring in more
people, but you need todeliver it with a point, otherwise
it becomes kind of like selfindulgent at that point.
So you graciously spoke at oneof my events maybe a year ago or
so.
Thank you for doing that.
Of course.
And Sam Ovensenser, you'resitting next to Sam Alvin.
So famously he'sconsulting.com, he's got school now,

(02:48):
but what did he tell you to doand what was the result?
I want to paint a picture.
I don't know if you rememberthe movie.
Desperado.
Antonio Banderas, he'sdescribed as Diablo.
It's like this crazy gunslinger.
And in the opening sequence,he's walking in and out of the shadows.
So as soon as we catch aglimpse of his face, he walks back
into the shadows.
It's kind of wild.
So Sam Alvin Evans is sittingon the left corner of the table and

(03:09):
he's pretty much in theshadows the whole time.
He doesn't say anything.
He's a pretty unassuming guy.
And then later on he goes,hey, Chris, it's Sam.
I'm like, hey, Sam, I know whoyou are.
We start talking.
He's like, he inceptions mewith this idea that I can run a mastermind.
And I said, I've been thinkingabout this, but I don't know the
structure.
I don't know how to do this.
He lays out the blueprint.
This guy makes everythingsound super easy.
It could be his sweetAustralian accent or whatever it

(03:30):
is, his demeanor.
He's super low key.
He goes, I only have 200,000followers on my YouTube channel.
You have 2 million, you have10x and you can do this.
So for the next six, seven,eight months, I've been working on
figuring out the offer andwhat is the product, what is the
pitch?
Right.
Working on that, I discovered,my God, I'm just doing the same thing
at a higher ticket price.
And this is not going to work.

(03:52):
Selling business design tomore creatives at the price in which
we're talking about, which is$36,000 for a year, was just like,
what?
No, I don't think I know thatmany people can enroll in this.
And it was then through thisperiod of discovery, a little bit
of not depression but like,man, this sucks.
Everything I've done so farhas just worked.
So this is just a gianthelping of humble pie.

(04:13):
Yeah.
And then I decided, okay, youknow what?
I was teaching at a differentgroup where they're all business
people and they wanted metalking about personal branding.
And I thought, oh, this is acontent mismatch.
But they got really lit up andthey were hounding me afterwards
like, what can I buy?
What else are you teaching?
I was like, nothing.
I have nothing for you.
My market, my community'screators have nothing for business

(04:35):
people.
Well, I went back, retooledthe whole thing, and now we're off
to the races.
I love it and I think so.
When Sam shared the numbers onhis mastermind back in the past,
he was doing, I think 6million a year on the Mastermind
and most of it was profitbecause the team wasn't that big.
And it was, I think that'swhat attracted everyone because I
think he told a lot of peopleat that dinner, it's like, do a mastermind.
Right?
And I think a lot of peopletry to do a mastermind.

(04:55):
Vanessa Lau ended up doing one too.
We should talk about this.
Right?
I think everybody withinearshot of this conversation decided
they're going to do a mastermind.
Yeah.
So Vanessa Lau, our mutualfriend, she was out of the gate first
and she executes like a crazymad person.
And she already did her first meeting.
I'm like, I'm still figuringout my offer right now and she's
already doing it.
And unfortunately for Vanessa,she hit burnout super fast, shut

(05:17):
down her mastermind.
Then I became friends withEamon afterwards and he's like, I'm
gonna do a mastermind.
That's right.
Right.
Yeah.
And then I was chatting with him.
He's like, no, I'm not doing a mastermind.
I'm just doing one on one coaching.
It's working well.
I'm just gonna keep it like that.
Who else did a mastermind?
Is there anybody else that we know.
Of in that group?
I don't think so.
I think it was just the three.
Of us, the trest amigos.
And I was the last one to execute.

(05:37):
Figure it out.
This is unlike me.
I'm usually much quicker totake action, but taking a couple
of stabs at it, it's like,that's not right.
The product doesn't meet the market.
Find the right product, market fit.
And eventually I think I did.
We should talk about it morebecause I think, I guess the event,
I don't like calling it A mastermind.
I guess it kind of is amastermind in a sense, but the way
I'm structuring it, it's only.
It's once per year, and it'slike, you know, let's call it could

(05:59):
be anywhere, like 10 grandplus a ticket or something like that.
Right.
But yours, how is yours structured?
Okay, mine is structured very simply.
And I did really get inspiredby Sam.
He's like, if you're adding somuch to this, then you have to start
to ask yourself, why are theyshowing up?
He said, they're showing upbecause they want access to you and
your brain and then to each other.
Focus on that.

(06:20):
So I started strippingeverything away, all the accoutrements,
just strip it down.
So we do one call a week viaZoom, and it's an hour and a half.
Sometimes it takes two hours.
And there's a hot seat style coaching.
So somebody already knowsthey're going to be the one in the
hot seat.
And we do whiteboarding.
So they tell me, here's whatI'm working on.
Take a look at this.
And I give very nuanced,articulated feedback.

(06:42):
So I'm looking at your headline.
This isn't working.
Your image is off it.
Turn it like this to changethe proportion ratio.
And then a B test this andnext week we'll talk again.
Y.
And unlike most of my coachinggroups, it usually falls.
And then some people do.
Most people don't do anything.
You know that.
But this group in particular,because of the amount of money they've
invested, because of who theyare, we turned away a lot of people
because we wanted to make surethis beta group, this, like, founder

(07:05):
series, are really goodbecause we want to be able to brag
about their success.
We want to see progress, andthey all take massive action.
Got it.
So it's four calls a month.
Right.
And they're paying what, 18grand over how many months?
Over six months.
So it's essentially threegrand a month.
Okay.
But you got to buy the whole chunk.
You can't just op in and out.
Got it.
And how are you.
Because you have, like, 2.3million subs on YouTube.

(07:27):
Not that subs are everything.
Right.
You have an audience is my point.
How are you getting thesepeople in?
And how many Mastermindmembers are there right now?
There are a total of 11.
I believe it's either 10 or 11.
I think somebody just added.
And the way that we weremarketing it was through announcing
it via Instagram, through ourcarousel, saying, hey, put in this
keyword.
If you say this.
Then we'll get you through ascore app.

(07:47):
You'll fill out answers to aquiz and only super qualified people.
Then get on a coaching.
Not a coaching call, salescall with me and I'm doing all the
sales call myself.
You're not going to get passedon somebody else.
There's a bunch of people thatare not a good fit.
There's a bunch of creativeswho don't meet the minimum criteria
of content, team and revenue.
So we have to keep saying noto those people on purpose.

(08:09):
Like, come back when you're ready.
You're not ready right now.
And we didn't really leverageour YouTube audience, which I think
I underestimated in terms oflike the reach.
We should have gone hard onLinkedIn, as hard as we did on Instagram
and as on TikTok and YouTube.
We didn't even announce it on YouTube.
Yeah.
I would argue.
I think it's.
I feel like it's the rightmove because you're still testing

(08:29):
your product market fit right now.
Yeah.
So I think eventually you'llprobably roll it out and far down
the road you're probablyretargeting that audience.
Like, I don't know, possibly.
There' a lot of people whoexpress interest in it and even to
this day, there's activationsthat people type in and I tell them
the price and then they don'treally go much beyond that.
It's like I'm very upfrontwith pricing.

(08:49):
I know in many instances withmasterminds, you have to go pretty
deep into it before you evenfind the price.
Like you're committed to asales call.
I just want people to knowthis because I know my audience is
broad and I don't want toreally get in a call where they're
making $100,000 a year andthey're going to spend 18 grand with
me, it's unconscionable for me.
I don't want it.
It's not going to work.
So do you for ex.
For the.

(09:09):
The All In Summit.
Right.
They have this conference andit's like straight up.
It's just like it's 7,500 a ticket.
Like there's no qualificationor anything.
Do you say that in your, like, form?
It's like, hey, it's justgoing to be 18 grand or no.
We tell them that there arethree things that you must have.
Number one, you must have somekind of demonstrable expertise.
It's important for us becauseI'm not going to teach you expertise.
So if you come in like how doI design, how do I market?

(09:29):
It's like this is not whatit's about.
Number two, you have to bededicated to creating content.
So if you've not createdcontent before, we'll, we'll tell
you this isn't it becauseyou're just looking for basics and
we're, we're going bey basics.
Okay.
Number three, you have tobelieve in the value of long term
brand building.
And a soft criteria is youmust be able to already have a team
or be able to hire a team tohelp you.

(09:51):
Because we know asentrepreneur, if we work with you,
if you don't have a team, thisis not going to get done.
You need cinematographers, youneed writers, you need designers.
It doesn't have to be a fulltime team, it doesn't have to cost
you a lot of money, but you doneed to be able to delegate this
work to someone.
It's going to be a failure otherwise.
Got it.
And what revenue wise is likethe sweet spot for I guess these
prospects?
I would say anywhere between,between on a revenue basis somewhere

(10:15):
really close to a million.
So if they're 750, it's fine.
And I would say if they'rebeyond 5 million that they probably
want to buy into a much morepricier mastermind than this.
I think I can help them, but Ijust think it's going to feel weird
for them.
So we have this one questionfor like our event.
When you apply for it, it'sbasically like have you paid for
a mastermind before orinvested in something like this?
And the people that close thesales are just like, that question

(10:38):
determines.
It affects the conversion rate majorly.
Okay.
If they're down to pay forthis stuff, they're like, you know
what I mean?
Yeah.
So you know, it's reallyinteresting because I'll backtrack
a story here.
Yeah.
I spoke at Neil Dingerez ITForward event.
A thousand people were there.
Mostly people in the realestate, mortgage, financial space.
Right.
A woman that you know, her andher husband saw me speak there.

(10:59):
Connected like in terms oflike, hey, we like what you do.
I announced that I was doing abrand strategy workshop in Miami.
They showed up, I didn't makethe connection.
And then they outed themselves.
We're not designers, we'rehere, we love this.
So we're just going to buywhatever you make.
And then they're like, tell meabout the brand lab thing.
Told them they signed up likea week later.

(11:20):
So you're right.
People who are invested inpersonal Development who've joined
masterminds before who fly allover the country to do events and
workshops.
They're my people.
They're ready to go.
I love that.
Yeah.
I think some people poo poo onmasterminds or courses or whatever.
I just think it's like this isjust a monetization model and it
works.
I think the way you do it isyou do it in a very tasteful way
and you're very meticulousabout how you do it.

(11:42):
It's not just like a cash grabfor you.
Yeah.
I don't think you're lazyabout it, is my point.
Yeah.
Because I believe in the longterm value of this.
Because if we do this right,it's not a $6 million business, but
it's a $3.6 million businessthat I get to coach and work with
some of the people that reallyinspire me that I love and like a
lot.
So if I could just keep doingthat, that's fantastic.
And then we get to open thedoors to now.

(12:03):
We get to play.
Once the business model is setup and the revenue is coming in,
as you said, it's mostlyexchange of information.
So the profit margins are very high.
It means I get to do somereally cool stuff.
So we sent like little boxesto people.
There's some other surpriseswe're going to send to them.
I didn't want to make it about that.
That's just like, hey, here'sa little surprise.
That's all.
Do you think like the nextlevel would be okay?

(12:25):
You coach some of these peopleup, let's say they get to like 10
million or whatever.
Are you going to try to maybeinvest in their company, take some
equity?
Like what's the play there?
The hormozy piece, the hermosi play?
I'm not a good operator.
I'm not really good atmanaging other people's business.
So it would be dead money for me.
But you'd be coaching for equity.
Okay.
Yeah.
I haven't thought of it thatfar yet.
So here's what I really think.

(12:45):
Brand Lab is about helpingpeople who are authorities in their
space get to the next level.
Public speaking, writing abook or just growing their audience
to create opportunities forthem and whatever else.
Right.
It's authority building and Iget to apply all the things I've
learned in practice over thelast eight or nine years.
And I get to help them.
I think by virtue of themlifting up their personal brand,

(13:06):
there's going to be a business benefit.
We're not so focused on thebusiness aspect.
So if they're like, hey, Ineed to make 3 to 6 million, I'm
like, yeah, that's business coaching.
Call me one on one.
Let's do that.
Got it.
It's not really for this.
It's really like it says it'sfor building personal brands.
So it's the brand lab.
I love it when people talkabout building a brand.
Like, I guess, do you tellthem to go to any specific channel?

(13:27):
I guess, what are the corefundamentals that you're teaching
them?
Okay, very good question.
So it's hot seat style coaching.
There is no curriculum, thereis no coursework.
It's tailored for each person.
So I'm figuring out what eachperson is trying to do.
I will say, hey, I need you toread this book, but actually I need
you to listen to audiobook orhere's a YouTube video.
So it's really curated intofor individuals.

(13:51):
Like what it is that you'regoing to do now.
If you're listening on thecall and you're like, man, I need
help with that.
Yeah, it's going to work for you.
You're going to consume thesame pieces of content.
But each person has adifferent problem because they're
at different stages in thegame and they're trying to do different
things.
Today's coaching call wasabout how do I tell my story.
I'm a little sloppy.
I know when I go to do publicspeaking, it's inspirational.

(14:11):
I move people and then they goand tell me a little bit of their
story.
It's a little bit all over the place.
So let's refine, let's bringit down, let's boil down the idea.
And they got so much clarityfrom that.
And I was like, okay, that'swhere that person's at.
And that's fantastic.
Someone's not even in thatpublic speaking space.
They want to just grow on LinkedIn.
So we look at content then, right?
We look at content strategy orcontent repurposing or understanding.

(14:34):
Like, what is your podcast doing?
Let me look at that with you.
It's very hands on in that way.
I love it.
And I guess the group coachingaspect, so I know the way Sam did
it in the past was like, okay,have a bunch of people come to the
classroom and then like they just.
What do you guys want to talkabout today?
I think yep, we're watchingsome of the videos.
So for you it's people show up.
Hot seat Sal.
I guess over 90 minutes.

(14:54):
How many hot seats are you doing?
I'm Trying to figure out howthat workflow looks.
Okay.
At most it's going to be three.
It'll be at least one.
It depends on, and I want tokeep it flexible.
I talked to my, my guy whohelps me run the program.
I said, I always want to haveone person on deck and one person
in the queue.
So in case this, this getsresolved or we can't figure it out
because they're not prepared,we're like, okay, we're gonna pause,

(15:17):
we're bringing the otherperson in, and then naturally, each
person tries to pull it apart.
They contribute to it.
It's very organic conversation.
Most of the times I'm leadingit, but sometimes people are like,
hey, I have some tips on howto do that with SEO or AI.
And I love that becauseeverybody brings in their own expertise.
It is very much a mastermindin that situation.
Do you think this model scalesbecause you're at 11 right now?

(15:38):
It seems to work out.
But once you get to 50 people,do you think they're all on the same
call or.
That's a very good question.
I don't think so.
My feeling is if you're a 7, 8figure entrepreneur, you're not going
to want to sit on every call.
There's some people who havetold me, I really just enjoy the
call watching you coach.
I'm going to be there for asmany calls as possible.
But I think what it is iswe're going to talk to Betty next

(16:01):
week, and Betty's got aproblem around this.
Her videos need some help.
So anybody's like, video,video, you should tune in.
But we also allow people tobring in their assistants, their
partners, so that they don'thave to then relay that information.
So if you're in the hot,you're allowed to bring in your friends.
When I say your friends,meaning your project manager, your

(16:22):
designer, your copywriter, andthey're listening.
I'm only interacting with thebrand lab member, but then their
teams are listening.
Got it.
We're trying to save as manysteps as possible.
Thankfully now Zoom has thosecall summaries.
They get the call summary,they get the PDF of the whiteboard,
and of course, everybody getsaccess to the recorded call.
I love it.
And so your ambition here, yousaid 3.6 million.

(16:43):
So you would get this to like200 members or so.
That would be 100 because it's36,000 doll for a year, 18,000 for
half a year.
Got it.
And I like this half yearidea, which I got from Jasmine Star.
She's like, just Cut it to sixmonths because what if you don't
like it?
What if you don't like these people?
You could discourage them fromre enrolling next time because there's
always going to be people youcan't make happy.

(17:05):
You don't want to deal withthem for a year.
It's too long of a commitment.
And what if like eight, eightmonths in, they're like, this is
miserable money back?
Well, you screwed yourself.
So I like this six month idea.
It's a shorter sprint.
It makes it easier becausethen we just enroll people twice
a year.
So hopefully people who getvalue, they re up.
But if they got what theyneeded, happy to send them on their
way.

(17:25):
Hopefully they tell a coupleof people and then this thing will
grow.
Got it.
I love it.
Yeah, that's the mastermind component.
Can you update us on thebusiness right now?
So like, what are the mainfocuses around the business and anything
you can share.
So it could be reach, could berevenue, whatever you're open to
sharing, I'll.
Share anything that you wantto know about.
I'm pretty transparent about everything.
Overall, we found that thisyear to be a down year for us, which
is a little depressing for mebecause I only want to move one direction.

(17:48):
Right.
So I think we're going to netout between 3, 7 to 3, 8 this year,
which is down quite a bit fromlast year, which is like 4, 4, 4,
3.
I want it to be a 6 or 7 million.
So we have to focus up.
I think the thing is, as we'refiguring out different business models,
we have a pretty thin teamrelative to the different initiatives
that we're doing and we needto focus up.

(18:08):
So we got to consolidate ourteam and figure out what the new
plan is.
And I'm using this winterholiday to kind of do a decompress,
to get some perspective, zoomall the way out and think about what
it is that we need to do.
I've been mostly focused oncreating content, running workshops
and just being a part of the community.
So I've left marketing alone,I've left warm outreach, I've left

(18:30):
all the ways that we can makemoney alone.
And I think I have to put myface in that for a period of time
so that all the brains couldbe working on at the same time.
Got it.
What's the approximate reach?
Like how many eyeballs are yougetting per month right now across
socials?
I think our reach is incredible.
It's one of the things that wedon't need to fix, thankfully.
So some of Our videos getbetween on YouTube.

(18:51):
Between.
See, on the low end, I'm goingto say 15,000 views for like.
I would say that's like thebottom, the basement.
And some of our videos withina month are getting 400,000 views.
Yeah.
And there's a wide spectrum in between.
I would say a good video isgoing to give a hundred thousand
views, and if an average videogets like six or seven minutes, that's
a lot of time being spentwatching the content.

(19:11):
So we're pretty happy with that.
We're picking up about 15,000new subs every month.
Revenue is about $10,000 as AdSense.
So the channel makes a littleover 120 grand a year.
Just as a straight up passive income.
Of course, there are branddeals, which I'm very excited about.
LinkedIn reach is really good.
I'm growing there between 100to 650 new followers every single

(19:34):
day.
Wow.
And I don't even post thatoften, so there is a bit of that
momentum.
Right.
You got the big mo working for you.
So as soon as you startcreating enough content, people start
tagging you.
They start resharing yourYouTube videos or Instagram carousels.
And I'm not one of thosecreators, like, hey, how dare you
repurpose my content tobenefit yourself.
Thank you, I appreciate it.

(19:54):
And you're just helping me getthe name out.
Yeah.
And my Instagram, if I'mconsistent on it, I get decent reach.
Maybe 300,000 impressionsevery seven days or something like
that.
Now, if I'm consistentlydropping carousels and reels, that
number will go way, way up.
Up.
Yeah.
But I'm fairly inconsistentwith that.
But I'm getting better.
So would it be safe to saythat your reach on socials each month

(20:15):
is probably like, I don'tknow, 2 or 3 million?
I would say higher.
Yeah.
For a month.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for a month.
And it's probably.
I mean, the person we hadbefore you, she gets like 16 million
views, but it's like on reels.
Right.
I would say that your viewsmight be higher quality because it's
a lot of.
It's YouTube.
Would you say that's fair?
I think so, yeah.
I'm also kind of like now nineyears into it, so people who know

(20:36):
me know what I stand for.
We have really goodinternational reach.
There's really high engagement.
One of the things I'm reallyproud of is that the interaction
between the people who followme is great.
They're commenting on eachother's comments and they're like,
I'm just here for thecomments, man.
Yeah, I love that.
Yeah, your comments are reallygood and you engage with them too.
I do.
A lot of times it's youleaving the comments or maybe all

(20:56):
the time.
It's mostly me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because nobody else is runningmy account.
Yep.
Figures.
You know, a lot of people aretalking about LinkedIn and what is
your workflow like?
Cause here's the thing, right?
Like my personal LinkedIn, right?
I look at it, it's like in thepast, my, whatever I post, it's just
gold, right.
It gets a lot of reach.
Now I'm just like, itstruggles, right.
It's a little harder.
What is it for you now?
It's still really good.

(21:17):
You still have to do best practices.
You can't just phone it in before.
If you like farted and ate apizza, people like, oh, so Inspiring.
Your pizza 8000 likes.
Your pizza shots are ridiculous.
Because you know what,everybody's getting better at creating
content.
There's just a little bit more competition.
But relative to all socialplatforms, I think think the least
amount of competition existson LinkedIn.

(21:39):
The algorithm is super generous.
It's pretty straightforward.
If you get people to engageand comment, you will just have your
post seen more.
So there are a couple ofthings you just need to do.
It's not that complicated.
Number one, include a reallyprovocative image.
Preferably you doing somethingweird and out of the ordinary that's
not this professional.
Like, we know you hired aphotographer to do this kind of thing,

(22:01):
right?
So I find that goofy photos ofme that exist in my photo albums
work really well.
Really well.
Like there's a shot of me in Taiwan.
We were hiking in the mountainsomewhere and there were two big
rocks and I just said, honey,I got an idea.
Take a picture of me.
So I'm stretched outhorizontally, supported by my hands
and my feet.
So it's like a board and I'mjust floating in space.

(22:21):
She takes a picture, I look atthe camera, it's done.
Anytime I post that, that'sgonna stop people in the feed.
We're looking for pattern interrupts.
We're looking for weird thingsthat don't fit the box.
So if you have a superprofessional photo, that's like the
three quarter smiley LinkedInphoto day shoot.
And that's not a pattern interrupt.
Got it.
Try things like flip yourphoto upside down.

(22:42):
Got it.
So you're doing provocative.
I guess the question is whatare you doing right now?
Are you doing the carousels?
Are you doing repurposing yourLinkedIn or your YouTube videos,
you're doing provocativeimages like, what are you doing?
I'm doing a mix of storydriven posts with a call to action
to answer a question, toprovoke people to share.
And I usually phrase thequestion two or three different ways.

(23:03):
So it's like, if you don'tlike the way I phrased the first
time, I'll do like, have youever thought of this?
But what about that?
And then tell me a time whenyou did this.
So somewhere in there they'regoing to interact and then I include
a thought provoking image thatkind of sort of goes with it.
And I tell people this.
I'm pretty good at taking aphoto, telling a random story that

(23:23):
is sort of related to thephoto and then bringing it to the
point that I want to talk about.
And that's just like me justtrying to exercise that muscle.
I'm pretty good at it.
So it's like you can like afriend of mine, Neil Dingra, who's
in the brand lab, who Imentioned before he posted this thing,
he's walking in the street,suburban neighborhood, and he said,
you know how I just walk bythese two guys and have those really
big wide leg pants that arehanging below their waist?

(23:45):
I was like, I thought thatthing went out in the 90s, or am
I too old?
It never looked good.
I'm still sitting herethinking, here we are in 2023.
That trend is still apparentlyviable to some people.
And he stopped there and Icalled him, I said, neil, you missed
an opportunity to pivot.
That thing stood out to you.
That's gonna get a lot ofpeople to laugh.
But you should have said, andhow many of you marketing with a

(24:08):
1990s strategy, and you'restill doing the same thing?
How many people are sellingthe same way they learned how to
sell when they were 24 years old?
As funny it is for people, forus to see people with their pants
down their waist, it's just as funny.
Looking at your marketing.
So here's me calling you out.
Love you, bye.
It's a good hook.
So you see what I'm saying?
So you bring me in withsomething that's relevant and kind
of funny and awkward and thenyou, you take me where you want to

(24:30):
go.
So you just find that parallel.
And are you just waking up?
Because sometimes people arejust like, yeah, I just wake up with
these ideas.
So for you, are you shootingfrom the hip when you're writing
on LinkedIn?
Are you actually spending time ideating?
Almost always from the hip.
I'm in the shower becausehere's my workflow in the morning.
I wake up and I'm a littlegroggy eyed, but I know it's time
to get up.
I'm just scrolling through the feed.
I'm going to read some stupidcomment or somebody asking a really

(24:52):
good question.
I'm like, I wonder what that'sall about.
Up.
I forget about it.
I brush my teeth, I jump inthe shower.
And in the shower I'm likeshaving or doing whatever I'm doing.
I'm like, wait a minute, Ihave an idea on how to frame that.
And I have to repeat it tomyself two or three times because
I know as soon as I walk downto the studio, it's going to be gone.
Yeah.
I get out, I go down thestudio and I write.
I'm like, boom, there it is.
Let me find the right imageand it's out and I leave it alone.

(25:13):
So a post like that is goingto get anywhere between 2,000 to
maybe 4,000 engagements.
Wow.
Or reactions.
Yeah, I should say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And by the way, like, somepeople will talk about how they post
on LinkedIn, but really theyhalf ass it and they might spend
like five minutes on a post.
Are you spending.
I'm assuming you're spendinglike 30 minutes an hour.
I would say no more than 30minutes for the writing.

(25:35):
I have a general rule, thelonger you write on it, the worse
it gets.
So I write when it's hot, whenI'm emotional or sometimes I really
feel like touched emotionally.
Like just an abundance of loveand joy and I'll write from that
place.
I'm like, who's this mushy writer?
Okay, I just write that thoseposts do well.
Sometimes I'm like not happybecause some idiot asked me some
stupid question and they'retrying to kill themselves.

(25:57):
I'm like, okay, let me justrespond to that.
And I find that I'm a muchbetter writer when I'm writing from
a place of emotion.
When I feel something, I wantyou to feel that thing in the writing.
So if you read it, like, yeah,I'm fired up too, man.
I can't believe people are so stupid.
I'm like, cool, we're on thesame page.
To me, that's art.
Art.
If you watch a film and youdon't feel what they're feeling,

(26:17):
it's really boring, Right?
If you listen to music and youdon't feel the pain that that person's
feeling when they wrote thatmusic, that's not a good piece of
music.
That's not art to me.
I love it.
I think this is.
I mean, this is the purestform of works on LinkedIn.
You're not doing anyengagement groups or anything like
that, I'm assuming.
Yeah.
People do ask me about this.
I'm like, no, friend, I'm sorry.
It's pretty artificial.
If you write something andyou're my friend, I'm trying to support

(26:37):
you.
I'll give you a.
Like, I might write a comment.
Yeah.
Because we're friends.
But yeah, I'm not doing thatas any part of, like, some larger
program.
And I don't want anybody to dothat for me either.
Got it?
Yeah.
Going back to the business.
So how are.
I guess if we look at a pie,how is your revenue split?
I would know this answerbefore, but now I'm really fuzzy.
Okay.
I've asked Ben, literally.

(26:57):
I sent a message earliertoday, hey, give me all the breakdown
financially, because when I goto do this work detox, I want to
have those numbers so thatthey start to fuel my mind.
Yep.
Let's talk about the workdetox piece, because everyone has
a way of winding down towardsthe end of the year.
So what's the Christo way of detoxing?
Yeah.
So I'm anti, like, New Year's resolution.
Right.
It's a silly thing for you towait a year to, like, finally do

(27:20):
something with your life.
But I'm also super aware ofseasons and seasons of life, seasons
of growth, seasons of pain.
And when we enter into thewinter months, we have less sunlight.
It's colder outside.
I think your energy changes,so it'd be foolish to ignore that.
I think you need to, like, usethis season to rest up, to not.
Not overfill your schedulewith stuff to do.
I say that as I look at myschedule tomorrow.

(27:40):
It's crazy.
And so there's going to bethis period where I'm going to get
to spend time with family.
We usually go on a trip.
We go to Asia.
We go somewhere and we do something.
And my wife's alwayssurprised, like, where's your computer?
I didn't bring it.
Yeah, no one is allowed totalk to me right now.
And I'm not going to, otherthan checking my messages from time
to time on socials.
That's it for me.
So I find that if you go intoa period of rest with clarity as

(28:04):
to what the problems are, letyour subconscious mind work on it.
It.
It'll figure out things for you.
It'll connect dots.
It'll say, this Person needs a promotion.
Those two people need to be fired.
And I always find that when Igo away for an extended period of
time, get to that state whereI'm really bored, somebody's getting
fired, somebody's getting hired.
It's almost always that way.
Yeah.

(28:24):
It's not good.
When Chris goes to detox.
Yeah.
Like, let me go on vacation,see what happens.
Are you writing any of thisdown, journaling it anywhere, or
just it's in your head?
No, I'm writing.
You have to write it becauseyou have these ideas that you're
like, this is great.
And then later on you're like,wait a minute, what was I thinking?
I don't recall.
So I bring a notebook with me,good old analog pen and paper.
I just write them down.
It's different when it'sactually like when you can touch

(28:47):
it.
I feel like when you'rewriting, there's.
Some science behind it.
You know that.
No.
What?
What is it?
Yeah.
So when we learn to write andto read, I don't know about you.
You draw these letters, right?
Yeah.
So there's some memory withthe kinesthetic movement of your
hand and drawing the characters.
But when we evolved to type ona typewriter, the action is this.
It's just poking.
The mind doesn't know whatthese things are.

(29:08):
Yeah.
It's not like, yes, your bodyhas memory.
And so when you're writing thedog ate the biscuit.
Yeah.
You're feeling that on adifferent level than you are just
typing it in.
At least that's for me.
It's time for a quick break,but we'll be right back.

(29:33):
When I started my motiondesign company blind in 95, there
was a lot I didn't know.
So I tried reaching out toother business owners and professionals
for help.
What did I find?
Many saw me as competition,and those who didn't weren't able
to give advice that made sensefor my line of work.
Thankfully, I was able to findmy first and only business coach,
Kier McLaren, who mentored mefor 13 years.

(29:54):
I also learned that my storyisn't unique.
Many entrepreneurs feel likethey are left to figure everything
out on their own.
It's why I created the FuturePro Membership, a community I wish
I had when I first started.
And I'd like to invite you tocheck out all that we have waiting
for you inside@thefuture.com pro.

(30:14):
And Rebecca, welcome back toour conversation.
There's a concept known as, Iguess from the book Story worthy
Crash and burning in the morning.
Right where it's almost likeletting your creative faucet because
there's a lot of gunk in themorning, so you're just writing for
like 10, 15 minutes.
So I just will, like, type itout, but I feel like now there's
an argument to just, like,write it all out for five, 10 minutes.

(30:35):
Anything that's on your mind,and then you pick, like, you cherry
pick the content ideas there.
Do you do anything like that?
I don't not like that, butwhat I do is I'm usually in bed and
people are like, how much timeyou spend on social?
A lot.
My life is social, so I couldbe in bed for 45 minutes or an hour.
In the morning, I'll usuallyget up 6, 7 in the morning, I'll
go through my messages, and mycue to get up if there's not a deadline

(30:56):
is when I'm fired up, I justjump out of bed.
I'm like, I.
I got the idea.
Yeah.
So it's just provoking thebrain to, like, what do you want
to talk about today?
Yeah.
So instead of like, jottingdown the 30 bad ideas.
Yeah.
I'm going through, like, waita minute, I'll type in the answer
and then I'll screen capture,like, that's the prompt for today's
post.
That's what'll drive it.
Got it.
Is it scheduled, like, your creativity?

(31:17):
I.
I feel like you can't schedulecreativity, but are you trying to
dedicate your first hour to itusually, or is it just like, whenever
it hits?
For me, I just write when Ifeel it.
It.
I've done it before where Isit up and I'm like, I'm gonna write
three posts today.
And they're dogs.
Like, they're not good.
It's not coming from anything.
I'm not really fired up aboutanswering any questions.
The good news is you probablyhave to exhaust a lot of content

(31:39):
before you get to that point.
And we're talking aboutdifferent levels of writing here.
Right.
So I feel like I've answeredthese questions too many times already.
Is there a new way to do this?
So recently, somebody wasasking me, like, hey, can I be on
your podcast?
And the way they ask is sobrushed to me.
I'm like, no, please don't askme that question.
So that inspired me to writehow to Get Booked on a Podcast.

(32:01):
And of course, that post doeswell because everybody wants to be
booked, but they'reapproaching it the wrong way.
And then I think I wrotesomething a little goofy in there.
I'm like, and how many ofthese are you guilty of?
Are your ears a little hotright now?
Because you probably brokesome of these rules already.
Right?
People lose etiquette whenthey're online.
I don't understand it.
Yeah, I love that.
Yeah, it's okay.

(32:21):
So, and we're talking aboutLinkedIn right now, specifically,
right?
Yeah.
Do you do a lot on Twitter or X?
Yeah, I do post some things onTwitter, but I'm finding that it's
all over the place in terms ofreach and engagement.
It used to be, like, prettypredictable, either good or bad.
I kind of knew what to expect.
Now it's like, sometimes thatworks and sometimes it doesn't.
And I think it's because Elonand team are behind the machine,

(32:46):
changing lots of things thatwe're not privy to.
And they're testing all the time.
Right.
And you notice now when youread responses, it continues showing
you what other people sayabout nothing about what you're talking
about.
Right.
So they're like, recommendingrandom things.
Random things.
I'm like, wait, this is notrelated to me.
So it's pretty seamless.
You read.
You read.
And like, oh, four posts down.

(33:06):
I'm like, they're not.
I don't even know who thesepeople are.
So I think they're testinglots of ideas.
They're doing things on theback end.
They're allowing us to editour tweets now up to a certain period.
They're slowing down ourrespond button.
Like, are you sure?
I think those things Twitterneeded for a long time.
They're shipping a lot faster.
We can give them that.
They are.
They're trying new things.
And Elon, for all his faults,I think he knows how to make product.

(33:29):
Yeah.
Oh, for sure.
I wish he would just stay outof that.
Here's my thought leadership stuff.
Yeah.
That's all.
Because I want to love thecompanies too, but it's getting harder,
too.
Yeah.
So it sounds like to me likeyou might have.
Let's just call it the mainpoint is the meat, but you might
have different hooks anddifferent stories and you're kind
of repackaging because youhave a lot of the main points you
want to make, but you have tokeep changing it up.

(33:51):
Right.
Well, I don't know.
I feel like I've saideverything I need to say, but I don't
know why.
I'll write something else.
And they're like, oh, that worked.
I'm like, is it different?
I don't know.
I try to stay out of thejudging business, so I Find problems.
When I find a problem I careenough about, I just bring into action,
I figure out a solution, andthen I let that go.
Love it, right?
Yep.

(34:11):
Because my idea, and I'm sure,I mean, my mind, just like yours,
is constantly like, give me agood problem, I'll solve it.
So it's in search of a good problem.
Got it.
How about your creative teamright now?
How is that structured?
Who's on the team and all that?
Okay.
All my video content guys,with the exception of one, they're
no longer with the company.
They left for different reasons.
I didn't fire them.

(34:31):
Okay.
I didn't fire them.
Everybody.
And then my wife's like, doyou need these people in house or
what's the deal?
So now we work withindependent contractors, and they're
friends of mine, and they justdeliver product.
So I'm like, what is theresult that you're getting?
However you want to get there.
It's up to you.
I don't like to manage the means.
I just want to look at the results.
So when the results are off,like, you know, you post a lot but

(34:53):
it's not working, or youdidn't post anything and it's not
working.
Between the two, I'd ratheryou post a lot than not at all.
So let's talk about it.
Or the thumbnails mismatchedwith the headline and this video
makes no sense.
We just talk about it.
So that's mostly the content team.
There's an addition of a writer.
I have a young woman who'sworking with me.
She's an independent contractor.
She helps out with a lot ofwriting and researching.

(35:13):
I've never really had that before.
We're still finding the rightcadence for each other in terms of
like, this doesn't sound likeme when you write this, so I don't
feel comfortable reading it.
Let's work on this a littlebit more.
So people who have notrecorded lots of videos, they write
in long run on sentences.
But when I try to read them,like, who talks like that?
I can't even breathe to read this.

(35:34):
Put some pauses in here.
Make the sentences simpler to understand.
And so that's the thing weneed to work on.
And how your content team, howmuch do you think you're spending
per month?
Month?
I know exactly how much we're spending.
So the hard costs are 13 granda month outside of our internal team.
So we have some internaloverhead that manage that as well.
But the hard cost, the writerand the video editing crew, it's

(35:56):
13 grand.
A month.
Got it.
And so if you add an internal.
Maybe it's like 25 orsomething, it.
May not be that high becausethey're managing other things, but
they're also, like, looking atthem, it might be a little bit more
than that, because I forgotthere's a person who's helping me
with the podcast editing.
So we have basicallysupervision of the content team,
but they don't really need aton of supervision.
You know what's interesting?

(36:17):
I look at your YouTube channelbecause you've been doing it for
a long time, and you've been consistent.
I think no matter what, overthe last couple years, you've always
uploaded, right?
Yes.
I think it's changed quite abit, because when I look at your
old.
I could be wrong here, butyour older videos, I think because
YouTube was easier back then,you were getting a lot more views,
and now it's more competitive.
Right.
Now when I look at Gary Vee,he was super prolific before.
He's not really getting thatmany views per video anymore, but

(36:40):
when I look at yours, thereare some that have 1002-003004-00000.
What do you think it is?
Do you think it's just acompetitive piece?
This is a clickbait title here.
I feel one coming, and I willbite, sir.
We'll see how this goes.
Okay.
It's interesting that youmentioned Gary Vee, because I think
he puts out so much contentthat by volume, it gets reached.
Right.
And because it's Gary Vee.

(37:01):
So at a certain point, I thinkthe way the Internet works and the
world works is if you'resuccessful, success breeds more success.
You're Alex Hormozi.
You exit out $100 millioncompany, well, whatever you say,
it's just gonna carry thatmuch more weight.
He literally said that on stage.
He said, maybe the advice thatI gave is not different than Susie
Homemaker, but because I'vedone this, you'll probably listen

(37:22):
to me more than you will Susie Homemaker.
We could literally say thesame thing.
So he's all about do the work,get the receipts, then talk about
it.
Work first, then talk second,which is anti Internet culture.
Internet cultures just talkall the time, never do anything,
and just be famous for talkingabout the thing.
Thing that you know nothing about.
Right.
That's typically how it works.
Now, I notice on.
On Gary's content, the viewsare terrible because the algorithms

(37:44):
need to do this thing wherethey try to bring in as many people
to create content as possible.
So essentially, the old modelwas, if you're popular, you're going
to be more popular if you'reCasey Neistat.
If you're any one of these oldschool creators, you're just going
to get the traffic.
But that is very discouragingfor new creators because their content
might be better.
The algo is going to favor theold school creators with a bigger

(38:05):
audience.
So essentially what they didwas they stripped away your reach.
Basically, if you look at yourstats, it's going to be like recommends
or discovery versus actual subscribers.
Subscribers for us is third orfourth down the list of who's actually
watching the video.
So if you have 2 million subs,it's not going to send it to 2 million
people.
It'll send it to a smallportion of them and that's it.

(38:27):
Unless they literally turn thebell on for notifications, they're
not going to see it.
It's more democratized that way.
So now Gary's content has tocompete with Susie Holmecker or Bobby
two Pants or whatever.
They have to basically competeon the same level.
And now here comes the hard part.
Is Gary's content that good?
Has it progressed?
Has it grown?
Like, has he said anything new?

(38:49):
Currently he's on I love mymom, Empathy and kindness.
Empathy and kindness.
I love my mom.
And it's like, okay, Gary,what else are we going to do?
What's that?
LinkedIn as well.
Well, on LinkedIn, I mean,here's the thing.
Well, I'm just saying, he saysLinkedIn's like another.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, this is the business.
If you want to be famous, make100 predictions, only talk about
the three that you get.

(39:10):
Right, right, right.
Just let the other ones die.
We see this like, he ain'ttalking about Snap anymore.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Snap's still a viable platform.
But nobody I know uses Snap.
Right?
How it's a viable platform, Ihave no freaking clue.
Right?
Okay.
Ain't talking about that.
And I'm sure nft, I know weall loved him at one point, but,
you know, hey, it's kind of agraveyard out there, right?

(39:33):
There's dead bodies everywhere.
I'm like, okay, let's see what.
So you can make a lot of predictions.
So here's the thing.
I think if Gary were actuallyto sit down to write some content
and be more intentional in theway he creates, he's going to grow
again.
But it's all over the place, man.
His team is just tryingeverything left and right and center.

(39:53):
His posts don't look the same.
They don't sound the Same.
And they're just trying stuff.
And he's getting killed onLinkedIn, on YouTube.
I don't know where else he'sposting content, but it's not getting
that kind of reach.
It's kind of.
It's almost sad to me.
Right.
Like, I'm rooting for him in away, but I'm like, I guess there's
democracy here.
Right.
I guess we are moving towardsan egalitarian social media space.

(40:17):
I think that's right.
Because, like, to your point, yeah.
It used to be about how manyfollowers you have, but when you
look at reels or TikToks, forexample, now it's just like, if your
video is good, it's just gonnatake off.
And so we publish a lot ofthese clips.
Right.
To my ig.
And some will get a couplehundred thousand, some will get 50,000,
some will get like a thousandor whatever.
Right.
And it's just like, if it'sgood, it's good.
And that's right.
Yeah.
So you want to do everythingyou can to make it good so that if

(40:40):
a good video goes out, it will catch.
Yep.
And I'll share this story, too.
Like that.
My YouTube's not that big.
It's like 78,000 or so.
But I used to get, like, youknow, 50,0001-000001-50000 views
or so.
And then I thought I was inYouTube jail.
Right.
I was only like 100 views, 200views or whatever.
I posted Alex Ramosi one60,000 views.
Layla wants, like 40,000 views.
And it's.
And it's like, relativelyspeaking, it's way more.

(41:01):
And it's because I think theYouTube product guy, he's just Todd,
I believe.
He's just like, dude.
Like, they're like littlesaplings each video.
And it's like, YouTube willtry to make it work if your video's
good.
Yeah.
Well, eight.
I guess it feels like youdon't care too much about what people
think about you.
Would you just say that's true?
It's 100% true.
I don't give a flying F.
I'll just say it.
How do you care less aboutwhat people think about you?

(41:23):
You learn to fall in love with yourself.
I know it's a hard thing to say.
And people are like, oh, gross.
Fall in love with yourself.
And the story I'll share withyou is this.
I get people who send memessages, and I'm sure you get the
same.
We're like, chris Doe, I'myour number one fan.
Right.
And sometimes they're men,sometimes they're women.
And I'll like, oh, here's Jenny.
She's like, I love this and that.

(41:43):
And my wife's like, she ain'tyour number one fan.
I'm like, okay.
She goes, I'm your number onefan, babe.
You know, my wife's tough on me.
Like, babe, trust me, you'renot my number one fan.
You love me, me, we'll die foreach other.
But I'm not sure you're mynumber one fan.
I could do no wrong.
But I said, despite all that.
Said I said, honey, you're notmy number one fan.
She goes, how come?

(42:03):
I'm like, I'm my number onefan, so get in line.
So here's the thing that Ithink about is a person is really
hard to love if they don'tlove themselves.
People who are broken needconstant affirmations and validation
from others.
And if you're a person who'slike, very generous and giving, what
you do is you put your ownpersonal development on hold, your

(42:25):
own love on hold, so that youcan fill the gaps for the other person.
The other person becomes superneedy and clingy, and they're having
good days and they havehorrible down days, and it's this
roller coaster of emotions.
I'm the worst human being.
I'm the best.
It's going between self loveand self loathing.
Terrible place to be in.
Super toxic.
It's like you need to heal.
You need to learn to love yourself.

(42:47):
Because two people who lovethemselves lift each other up.
And I think in a weird way,both Layla and Alex have the expression
of two people who truly lovethemselves, even though they both
suffer from crippling insecurity.
They both admitted this, thatthey do not try to change each other.
So one person wants to dothis, do more of that, One person
wants to do something else, domore of that.

(43:08):
And they overlap in thesewonderful ways.
I think there's somethingreally weird, beautiful, utilitarian
and magical about how they exist.
Most relationships are notlike that.
So when one person starts tooutgrow the other, the other person
feels insecure, jealous, andwants to pull the other person back.
And they sabotage each otherand they drag each other into the
gutter.
That's why those two are likea power couple doing whatever they

(43:31):
want in their lives.
It's pretty amazing.
Their relationship's notperfect, obviously, but it's freaking
pretty awesome from where I'mstanding, right?
So we have to learn to love ourselves.
So therefore, if I know who IAm and accept the good and the bad
parts of me me.
When some Internet personsays, hey, you're a donkey, you don't
know what making money is oryour design 10 sucks and you look

(43:51):
like an old lesbian lady.
I'm like, cool, bro, cool.
I don't care because none ofthat is how I see myself.
And yes, you're allowed tohave an opinion and your opinion
can be true too, but it's notgoing to match my opinion.
So when there's no enemywithin, there's no enemy without.
It's not your responsibilityto take care of someone else.

(44:12):
Like I'm thinking aboutrelationship wise, right?
Like you have to take care ofyour own stuff.
You have to fall in love with yourself.
You can't expect someone elseto come help you do that.
I mean, but people do that allthe time, don't they?
Yeah, they are actuallyliterally looking for people to fulfill
some empty spot in them.
Shel Silverstein wrote thisbook called the Missing Piece.
It's a beautiful story.
It's written for children.
I really think it's for adults.

(44:33):
There's a character, it lookslike Pac man and it's like a pie
shaped thing and it's rollingaround and it's got this wedge missing
and it's like it sings alittle song.
Hidey ho, hidey ho.
Off I go, go.
Have you seen my missing piece?
It goes to the butterfly andthey're like, nuh.
Goes to the bird, it goes tothe grasshopper.
No one has seen this missing piece.
And eventually it finds acouple of pieces it doesn't fit quite
right and it just keeps going.

(44:54):
And then eventually it finds apiece as it's rolling down the hill
that fits it exactly and says,hey, are you my missing piece?
I was like, I don't know.
They connect.
They form a perfect circle.
And now when it rolls down thehill, because it's got something
in its mouth, it can no longer sing.
So buh buh buh buh buh buh buh.
It can't sing anymore and it'srolling too fast.
So it can't say hi to the sn.
I can't say hi to the butterfly.

(45:15):
Eventually it stops.
It spits the piece out andit's like, you know what?
I'm okay just the way I am.
It's a beautiful story.
And so this is life.
This is us from 0 to 55 or 40or, you know, 100.
Still searching for somethingto feel complete.
And I have this diagram.
I said, are you a whole human?
I Show a picture of a personsilhouetted with a hole.

(45:38):
Or are you a whole human?
Are you complete?
Can you see which one you are?
Because that hole that existswithin you, no matter how much you
put in it can never be filled.
That's the problem.
So heal the whole.
First, thanks for sharing that story.
And the second, I have to askyou, do you keep like a story bank
in your head that you work on?
No, not really.
And you know, the funny thingis I'm getting older, so my memory

(46:00):
should get worse, but I'mrecalling things from my childhood
that I'm like, why haven't Itold that story?
Oh, that's interesting.
I'm still discovering thingsabout my own life.
And I think each and everysingle one of us has this, Eric,
where we have an infinite bankof stories.
Just we have to learn to lookfor them, to harness them, and to
get into the practice oftelling them.
I heard this story from Vin Zhang.

(46:22):
He's a public speaker,communications guy from Australia.
He's a magician.
He's pretty funny.
Good looking, like Asian dude, right?
Asian dude.
He's Vietnamese brother fromanother mother.
Yeah, mother effer.
Okay, okay.
He's successful too.
My God, I hate him.
Okay, so here's the deal with Vin.
He.
He goes, why do we tell stories?
Why is it important for us totell stories?

(46:42):
His answer was very differentthan what you expect.
His answer was so that we canknow who we are.
So that when people questionus, we're like, no, I've told my
story to myself enough timesthat your story doesn't match how
I see me.
And so we need to get into thepractice of telling our story about
who we are, what our beliefsand values are, and where we come
from, and who we honor, who welove, who we dislike.

(47:06):
We have to keep telling thatbecause that becomes part of our
track in terms of the recordof our life.
So people who aren't in thepractice of telling their story don't
know themselves.
So before you can get to selfacceptance, you have to get to self
awareness.
And they're missing that self awareness.
It's interesting too.
Speaking of stories, like,let's say we're sitting at the dinner,

(47:27):
there's always one person thatcaptivates the entire table with
their stories.
It's like everything comesdown to storytelling.
Not everything, right?
But it's such a huge piece ofbranding and marketing in general.
I think it's bigger than that.
I think it's about human connection.
And allow me to indulge in thewhole theory of Story Eric and Meads
talks about this, he's likestories of the operating system of

(47:49):
the human mind.
Everything that we know thatwe believe, the God that we pray
to, the God we don't pray to,how we identify, like, go, San Jose
State warriors or whatever isSan Jose State Warriors, Golden State
warriors, you know, aboutwhere we're from, about our culture,
our customs, about ourgrandparents, about our genealogy.
All these things define us.

(48:10):
I read in Brian Tracy's bookthe Psychology of Sailing, he said
that the most profounddiscovery in the 21st century or
the 20th century in psychologyhappened in the idea of the self
concept.
It's very important.
The self concept is who are weand what makes us us.
Now when we get into identitypolitics and we get into branding

(48:32):
now if you understand this,like, who is Eric, who is Brad, who
is Chris?
How do we see ourselves?
And our actions are the in orout of alignment with how we see
ourselves.
So when you have guilt, it'sbecause you've done something wrong.
And you know that because thisis not in keeping with me.
So if your self stories like,I'm a generous, loving person and

(48:55):
I turn the other choice cheekand somebody cuts you off the freeway
and you scream at them withroad rage, you mother effer and you
try and chase them off theroad, it's like, is that in alignment
with how you see yourself?
And so then you will go homelater that day, like, you'll feel
really bad.
You're like, oh, why did I do that?
Why am I such an a hole?
So if you yell at your kids,you yell at your spouse, like, wait
a minute, that's not how I see myself.

(49:16):
So then you have to make a decision.
Which one is the real me?
Am I the a hole or do I justlove the image of myself in that,
that I'm a kind, generousperson that turns the other cheek.
So we have to let those twoideas of ourselves fight.
And one of them needs to win.
Until that's resolved, we havethis internal conflict.
We're a little confused.

(49:38):
So we're never sure how we'regoing to behave.
This manifests itself in ourbrand because when we're online,
how do we respond to something?
We're completely inconsistent.
So somebody else is not goingto take the flag with us and join
our cause.
Because, like, I don't knowwho you are.
Some days you pretended to bethis person and some days you showed
me your true face.
I'm not sure who you are.

(49:58):
And so then what happens?
Goodwill erodes, trust erodes.
And Then therefore, rapport is gone.
So if you want to be thatcharismatic person in a room, in
a podcast, at dinner, you haveto learn to be aware of who you are
and to accept that, to me,self acceptance is the most beautiful
makeup you can wear.
I feel like if you're notconstantly re.

(50:20):
Underwriting yourself, thenyou start to lose yourself because
you're not in control of yourstory anymore.
Is that a financial term?
Underwriting?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can say re.
Evaluating.
Reevaluating.
Yeah.
See, I think who you are hasbeen established already for a long
time, and it's just we forgetwho we are.
So when I teach story andpersonal branding, it's not a product

(50:44):
of invention.
It's a product of memory,remembering who you are.
So there's some debate aboutthis, but I think anywhere between
the ages of 5 and 9, who youare for the rest of your life has
already been formed.
Your brain is forming, andyou're seeing things that both good
and bad, start to shape yourbeliefs and your actions moving forward.

(51:07):
So if you had said somethinginappropriately because you thought
it was funny, and you werereprimanded by your mom, by your
dad, by a teacher, you maydevelop a stuttering problem from
that point forward.
And it comes to that childhoodtrauma that's unresolved.
And now you're going todevelop a speech impediment, or you're
going to be much more introverted.
You're afraid to speak yourmind, and you don't make eye contact

(51:28):
with people.
So things are shaping for youbecause your mind is so malleable
at that point that anypositive and negative stimuli can
change how you think.
So now as an adult, you're noteven sure what you're responding
to.
So when somebody speaksloudly, you'll, like, tell them,
be quiet.
Why is that?
You're echoing what you learnwhen you're 5 years old, and that

(51:50):
person triggers you in the waythat you're really annoyed by them
because you're annoyed by yourself.
But no one's really annoyed by themselves.
They're just parentingthemselves the way they were parented.
Dr.
Firestone's right about thisin the book overcoming your inner
critical Dialogue or somethinglike that.
And it's quite interestingthat once we go back in time, we

(52:10):
uncover that point and we'lllook at it like the sacred timeline
split between who you couldhave been and who you are.
And we can heal that part.
We can rediscover who the heckwe were.
I want to switch gears to talk about.
And this will Be the last part.
But you talked about findingin one of your videos, finding the
right coach and mentor.
What does that look like to you?

(52:31):
And what kind of impact haveyou seen from that?
Yeah, I think more of us wouldbe better in life if we just sought
out coaches or teachers,instructors for the things we want
to improve in.
That's how I want to say it.
Because the label of coach,teacher, therapist, whatever, it
kind of has a differentconnotation to different people.
So if I say to you, I'm seeinga therapist, you're like, ooh, something's

(52:54):
wrong with Chris.
No, A physical therapist.
Oh, you're fine.
You know, it's kind of weirdhow we look at it like that, right?
I'm seeing a coach for tennis.
Makes sense.
I'm seeing a business coach.
Oh, you don't know how to runa business?
I don't get it.
If you need help withsomething, it's wise for you to take
some kind of shortcut byworking with someone who can help
you get there faster with lesspain and less wasted resources.

(53:17):
And so I was very lucky.
I found my business coach justa few years out of starting my business.
I think about five or sixyears in.
He transformed me and thentherefore transformed my business.
And I worked with him for 13 years.
He's since passed away.
But he was probably the singlegreatest influence and impact on

(53:38):
my life outside of my parentsand my family, my professional life,
a hundred percent, my sense of self.
Not a hundred percent.
It's with my parents and other people.
But.
And then here we are, we seepeople, and I have friends like this.
They're just constantlygrinding away at it because they
were not raised in a culturewhere it was okay to ask for help.
Or they just think, you know,the best way is to do it the hard

(53:59):
way way.
If that's your way of life,then go be successful doing what
you do.
But I'm telling you right now,if somebody knows how to do something
or can help you do it in yourway, but faster.
It's worth its weight in goldbecause we can make more money.
We could never make more time.
How do you find?
Because I'm sure a lot ofpeople listening, they want a mentor,

(54:21):
they want to coach.
They're a little different.
Right.
But it's like, how do you findthe right coach?
That's a really good question.
I think I'm going to give badadvice on this because I was really
lucky.
I just met a guy and it'slike, I'll hire you.
And I worked with that personfor 13 years, never questioned it.
I was done.
So people are going to meet charlatans.
So let me tell you what toavoid first before we figure out
what to do.

(54:41):
The people who over promisewhat they can do, the people who
talk about themselves so muchand don't have receipts and rely
a lot on social proof, youhave to be a little careful of they
know that a trigger for us isif I take pictures with famous people,
if I have fancy cars, live ina nice house and seem to be dating
the right kinds of people.

(55:01):
They use that in lieu of realwork, real experience and then they
pull you into a web and youare complicit in the lie.
Seth Godin writes about this.
All marketers are liars andwe're complicit in the lie.
We want to believe that.
What's more interesting is ifyou meet somebody who's really grounded,
who drives like a Honda Civicor something, who isn't flashy about

(55:22):
anything but is deep in whatthey have to say and have lived a
life.
I'd be a little bit nervousabout getting life advice from 30
year olds.
They haven't lived enough ofit to know what to look out for.
Not to say there aren't somereally wise 30 year olds out there,
but most of them are charlatans.
They took an online course,they talked to talk, they've never

(55:43):
walked a walk.
And one way you can tell is ifsomebody got rich.
Teaching people how to getrich versus doing the thing that
they're trying to teach you,you, that's usually a warning sign.
That's a red flag if you will.
So let's put all that aside now.
Now let's say you findsomebody and you don't need to find
the best, most qualified, mostexperienced person in the world.
First of all, you probablycan't afford them.

(56:04):
You might not be a good fitfor them.
I think what you need to do issay do I trust this person?
And you have a pretty good instinct.
We call it our gut.
If your gut says this is apretty good person, they seem to
be the credible what I wantyou to do, it's just to do what they
instruct you to do to the bestof your ability, the way you were

(56:25):
instructed.
That's been my life hack, giveyou an example.
I hired a personal trainervirtually for the first time in my
life.
I've exercised before and Icontinue to exercise.
And then the personal trainersays eat this, lift those weights,
don't eat that.
Log it this way and take thesePhotos and my wife.
It's like, do you need to eat that?

(56:46):
Why don't you substitute itwith this?
Do you need to work that hard?
You need to take it easy on yourself.
You're going to hurt yourself.
This person doesn't knowenough about you.
I'm like, babe, I paid this person.
I made the commitment.
I'm doing exactly as theperson prescribes.
Otherwise, I will not know ifhe is a good coach for me or not.
I must do it.
Exactly.
And of course, I consume it.
I'm like, I'm doing it.

(57:07):
I'm doing everything I'msupposed to do.
So she's the type who startsto edit the advice almost immediately
because her logical mind says,I can't do these things.
This.
These things don't work.
She has a lot of suspicion.
So my thing is, if you don'ttrust the person, don't hire him
as a coach.
Give it a certain time.
Say, I'm going to work withyou for 60 days with the expectation
that X, Y, and Z is going to happen.

(57:28):
At the end of 60 days, there'sno more obligation for you to continue.
If you love the work, if youlove the way you feel and the way
you're being treated, thenkeep going.
Otherwise, cut your losses andmove on.
But trust the person.
Otherwise, there's no point.
I love that.
So this would be the last oneyou had.
There was a $312,000 bit ofcoaching advice that saved your life.
What was it?
Oh, okay.

(57:49):
You just looked at the YouTubethumbnail, right?
Yeah.
So I worked with my businesscoach for 13 years, and I paid him,
I think, two to $3,000 a month.
So it's the aggregate of whatI paid.
I've learned invaluable thingsfrom my business coach.
So now you want to know, like,what the highlights are.
Yeah.
Because you know what's funny?
Like, the office that we'rerecording in, so he.

(58:09):
He's a buddy, and he's like, Ihad a coach.
You.
For someone that had apublicly traded company, whatever.
He's like, didn't get muchfrom it, right?
Yeah.
And he's like, our coach isreally good.
So here's the chance.
Okay.
So the thing that.
And it's funny because I'llbring up a Gary Vaynerchuk thing.
You might think a basketballis worthless.
And he goes on to say, abasketball is pretty worthless to
me.
I've blown out two Achilles.

(58:31):
He'll, you know, and I'm like,this is not anything for me.
So you can say, Basketballsare stupid.
They're not worth anything.
But you give the basketball toLeBron James and it's worth a billion
dollars because, because heknows how to use it.
Because a coach didn't workfor you doesn't mean coaches are
not good.
He went for the name brand, hewent for the accolades versus the
person.
And we get trapped in this allthe time.

(58:52):
It's called the Halo effect.
So somebody goes to Harvard,we just assume there must be good.
We just attribute too much.
Somebody's good looking, wethink they're good salespeople.
You're not looking at thisobjectively with clear eyes.
Look at the substance, not thevindictive veneer.
And he's, he's looking at the veneer.
And I have many friends whofall down this trap, right.
Mostly because they'reinsecure about something and they
see like, my God, I want apublic trade company, therefore I

(59:15):
must listen to this person.
So we bring it back.
What did my business coachteach me?
He taught me really profoundthings that when I tell you are so
fundamental, you're like, didsomebody really need to teach you
that?
Well, yeah, because this boydidn't know it.
And it's not going to be someweird Nintendo back up ab, down,
left, right, right, right,button start thing.
It's not like that.

(59:35):
It's execute the fundamentals.
And so one of the things hetaught me was he gave me permission
basically for a bunch ofdifferent things.
He gave me permission to saywhat I think.
That's the life changing advice.
Yeah.
If you're a guy who hides his.
Thoughts, it's pretty big.
If you're an introvert, ifyou're afraid that people will feel
offended if you ask him, like,how'd you come up with this idea?

(59:57):
Or do you recommend this?
Or how are you going to makethe decision as to who you're going
to work with?
And those are things.
Things I never thought I couldask a prospect.
Because we are taughtsomewhere it's rude to ask those
kind of questions or it'suncouth to do that.
What are you, some Cretanknuckle dragging mouth breather?
And initially the reaction Igot from people because no one's

(01:00:19):
ever asked them those kinds ofquestions was a little friction.
You push past the friction andwhat they do is they give you insights.
But what's really important isthey feel seen, they feel heard,
they feel appreciated.
And now I feel like the job isalready ours and we haven't even
done any creative work yet.
So now we can only Screw it upwith bad creative.

(01:00:41):
So that's how we went fromclosing 25% of the jobs to closing
85% of the jobs.
And at this point, I reallyliterally feel this way because I've
done it too.
I've closed a million dollarjob before and I can close a $10
million job.
Give me a buyer who's really serious.
Give me the information I need.
I will close that person.

(01:01:01):
Because he just taught me howto be human, how to relate to people.
So I will say to people whoare, who have an adverse reaction
to selling, I said, sellingisn't what you think it is.
Selling is serving.
Selling is helping someone.
And if you're passionate aboutwhat it is that you do and you believe
in the solution, helping theperson find a solution that's good

(01:01:22):
for them is the most naturalthing to do.
So we don't have to learn howto sell.
We have to learn how to behuman first.
So that's just one of the things.
Another thing he gave me waspermission to be the boss.
It's really weird because he'slike, Chris, you're sitting here
holding meetings with yourexecutive producer, with your creative
directors, and you allow themto make decisions for you, but your

(01:01:47):
instincts are better than allof theirs combined.
So you see, he says, as theboss, if someone's going to be wrong,
you have the first right to be wrong.
You've earned the right to bewrong because you're the ones who
stays up late at night.
You're the one who has to letpeople go.
You're the ones who has todeal with that stress and that burden.
You should be the first personto be wrong.

(01:02:08):
So take that right now.
I love that.
I think that's there's more.
But you know, I can sit here and.
Actually, much of what I'vewritten in my book Pocket Full of
Dough is from.
From the lessons I've learnedfrom Kir.
I can go on and on and onbecause, you know, tell me a situation.
I will recite something thathe taught me in those 13 years.
You got a long YouTube videoyou can make from that.

(01:02:29):
So by the way, so where canpeople find Pocket full of Dough?
And then also where can peoplefind all your stuff online?
The best place is go to ourwebsites, the future dot com.
We spell future kind of funnies.
F U T U R.
There's no E.
Somebody asked me where the ego.
I said we drop the ego.
That's why there's no.
It's just the future dot com.
And I'm Hechris do do isspelled D O.

(01:02:52):
You can find me pretty much onany social platform that's relevant
to anybody.
Thanks for joining us.
If you haven't already,subscribe to our show on your favorite
podcasting app and get newinsightful episodes from us every
week.
The Future Podcast is hostedby Christo and produced and edited

(01:03:14):
by Riddle Cardona Media.
Thank you to Adam Sanborn forour intro music.
If you enjoyed this episode,then do us a favor by reviewing and
rating our show on Apple Podcasts.
It will help us grow the showand make future episodes that much
better.
If you'd like to support theshow and invest in yourself while

(01:03:34):
you're at it, visitthefuture.com and you'll find video
courses, digital products, anda bunch of helpful resources sources
about design and the creative business.
Thanks again for listening andwe'll see you next time.

All Episodes

335 - Vulnerability Meets Growth Strategies - With Eric Siu

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}335 - Vulnerability Meets Growth Strategies - With Eric Siu