April 2, 2025 • 45 mins
Ready to redefine success and embrace your authentic self? Join host NaRon Tillman on Walk in Victory as he sits down with holistic brand therapist and comedian Hersh Rephun to explore the journey from seeking external validation to achieving genuine personal growth. Hersh shares his experiences in stand-up comedy, how the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped his career, and how he pivoted to help others build authentic personal brands. This episode highlights the power of meditation, self-exploration, and finding balance between professional ambition and personal fulfillment. Discover the core philosophy of Hersh's upcoming book, "Selling the Truth," which blends life lessons with business insights. Whether you're an entrepreneur, creative, or simply seeking deeper personal clarity, this conversation provides a refreshing perspective on success and authenticity. Plus, just as Hersh emphasizes the importance of authenticity and self-discovery, we believe in creating a comfortable and supportive environment for your personal growth journey. That's why we're proud to partner with Cozy Earth, offering premium bedding and loungewear designed to enhance your well-being and promote restful sleep – essential for self-reflection and authentic living. Visit cozyearth.com and use our exclusive code VICTORY1 to enjoy an incredible 40% off.
Key Takeaways:
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/walk-in-victory--4078479/support.
🎧 Thanks for listening to Walk In Victory with NaRon Tillman!
Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and share this episode with someone who needs encouragement today. ✨ Sponsored by Cozy Earth – Elevate your rest with luxury bedding. Use code VICTORY1 for 40% off at cozyearth.com. 🔗 Stay connected:
Key Takeaways:
- The journey from seeking external validation to embracing authentic personal growth.
- The power of meditation, self-exploration, and balance in achieving fulfillment.
- How the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped careers and created new opportunities.
- Building genuine personal brands that reflect your true self.
- Redefining success and embracing authenticity in personal and professional life.
- 00:00 Introduction to Meditation and Mindfulness
- 00:13 Welcome to Walk in Victory
- 00:52 Pivoting During the Pandemic
- 01:46 Embracing Change and New Opportunities
- 05:27 Historical Context and Interpretation
- 06:40 Personal Branding and Identity
- 09:47 The Journey of Self-Discovery
- 15:13 The Art of Listening and Silence
- 22:41 Selling the Truth: The Core Philosophy
- 23:02 Impact of COVID-19 on Comedy and Branding
- 23:51 Adapting to New Realities: The Birth of a Podcast
- 25:03 The Struggle and Pivot During COVID
- 25:42 Reevaluating Goals and Success
- 29:19 Creating a Flexible Environment
- 29:44 Holistic Branding and Personal Growth
- 30:14 Visualizing Success and Overcoming Barriers
- 32:52 The Competitive Nature of Comedy
- 34:04 Shifting Focus from Fame to Fulfillment
- 36:09 The Fame Bug and Personal Sacrifices
- 37:46 Making Choices and Living with Consequences
- 41:19 The Importance of Authenticity
- 41:39 Promoting Selling the Truth
- 44:08 Final Thoughts and Call to Action
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/walk-in-victory--4078479/support.
🎧 Thanks for listening to Walk In Victory with NaRon Tillman!
Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and share this episode with someone who needs encouragement today. ✨ Sponsored by Cozy Earth – Elevate your rest with luxury bedding. Use code VICTORY1 for 40% off at cozyearth.com. 🔗 Stay connected:
- 🌍 Website: walkinvictory.me
- 💼 LinkedIn: NaRon Tillman
- 📸 Instagram: @walkinvictorypodcast
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And meditation of those things. You're not talking, you're not presenting,
You're just kind of listening. You may be listening to
yourself and your thoughts. You may be listening to music
or a guide.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good afternoon, good day, good evening. I don't know what
time you're listening or were you listening from shaboy your
host Lauron Tillman, and you are wit me for another
episode of Walk in Victory Speaking of victory walk.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Warning, this is a public service announcement. The Walk in
Victory podcast is where we have conversations purpose to evolve lives.
You may not want to evolve, then tune into another
bleeping podcast. Everyone else enjoy the show and here's our
host you.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
No, good day, good evening. I don't know what time
you're listening or are you listening from this shab boy,
Your host Lauron Tillman, and you are with me for
another episode of Walk in Victory. Speaking of victory walks,
we've all had to those of us who have gotten
to the aside and would be honest, had to pivot
(01:03):
After COVID, I was doing yoga and mindfulness in schools
and we were really taking off in skyrocketing and so
they get yoga hitting. Yoga didn't hit it, COVID hit.
And once COVID hit and came back, everything slowed down.
The first of all, the New York City moved from
(01:23):
the curriculum which required more mindfulness and stuff like that,
and they changed their core curriculums, and so I had
to pivot us a company. I have to pivot us
as a brand, and a lot of people have was
going through that, and you hear over and over people
who have built something pre COVID, post COVID, they had
(01:44):
to find themselves building again. But the other thing that
wound up happening is that there was plenty of opportunity
for online space. The only COVID I took the class
in podcasting already had a podcast, but I really didn't
understand the systems of podcasts. Where As that allowed me
(02:07):
to take the challenge, allow me to go into a clients,
allow me to become better at the craft of podcasts,
and it allowed me to see podcasts and through a
different lens. And now we have a production company which
we produce other podcasts, and we're going into podcast coaching
and we're doing some other stuff. But everything that we're
doing is connected to what we were doing as a
(02:27):
brand through the urban Yogis, which is mindfulness. And still
now I was able to develop a mindset to really
bring everything that I together under an umbrella just to
post segment and everything where I was preaching. I've been
preaching since I was twenty five, and sometimes you get
want to get away from that stuff, right, But now
(02:49):
I understand that there's a blend through the advent of
neuroscience and spirituality. It is a unique blend of entrepreneurial ship,
spirituality and mindful best mindful practices of movements. And it's
like everything came into our world house. So we went
(03:10):
from a place where everyone was busy and you're trying
to find your footing and niche down into one thing
to now where people are really more cognitive and aware
that there's more life than making money. There's modern life
than just being busy, and really people want to find balance,
(03:32):
even if they're eightysts. They want to find balance between
the conscious and the subconscious mind or traumas and pasts,
and we all experienced as a world trauma at the
same time. So it's not like something happened at your
neighbor's house well and affected. We all were affected. We
(03:53):
all lost a sense of touch. But here's the funny
thing that happened during that time, not to harp for
a COVID moment. When we came out of it, the
world as we knew it changed. There was a hard reset,
and I'm going to tell you guys, it's not coming
back the world as we known it before it had
a hard reset. Right to stop and fast forward ahead.
(04:18):
We are now living in a new era and the
aier And if you look at historically, anytime you had
major transformations, whether it's in currency or technology, it always
came on the heels of calamity. Curncy change, calamity, technology change, calamity.
(04:39):
So this is this pattern. I don't know. I'm not
saying I'm not conspiracy theorists, but what I will say
is that throughout history, and you can go as far
back as you want to, throughout history, there's always a
major event that's unexplainable, and following that event, there's a
(05:01):
calculated push to make some type of transformation in society.
And we're living in the midst of that transformation. And
those of you who are listening we're living in history.
We're living in history. I told you, as we bring
in I mean preaching to twenty four, I'll be twenty five.
You're just old. I'll be twenty five years old. I'll
(05:21):
be fifty years old. And oftentimes when I look at
the Bible, we talk about interpretation and systems of interpretation,
and the first thing that we have to look at
is historical interpretation. How were the people in their time?
So it's easy for us to say, oh, if I
was there, I would have did this different Now I
(05:42):
did that differently, we can't really say that because we
weren't living in that time. The culture was different, the
settings were different, everything was different. And it's the same
thing where we are right now. Someone is going to
look back to where we are fifty years from now
and interpret how we are interpreting in this time, and
they're going to look at this historical moment. I say,
(06:05):
if I was there, I would have been a billionaire
because I would have took advantage of this, and I
would have. But if our insight is twenty twenty, are
you willing to roll the dice? Are you willing to
try something different? And that's what walking victory is about
helping conversations to push the limit, push you to the
place of imagination in a place where you can see
yourself past where you are hersh how are you doing, sir?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I'm doing great. And Ron, thank you. That was very
interesting to hear that take coming in. I totally agree
with that.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, well, tell out audious a little bit about yourself
as much as you're willing to share, and we're gonna
jump and dive right into it.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, so I can't. I came to do what I do,
which is to be a holistic brand therapist. And I
use those words very intentionally because I think that the
personal brand is really all about who you are in total.
It's your whole personality, but framed in a way that
(07:03):
helps you climb that next mountain. Because your audience wants
to hear from you a certain way. They don't want
to be confused. They want to know what you bring
to the party, but they also want to know who
are you. It's like you you ask who am I.
I'm a creative person. I did stand up comedy, I
wrote a few little movies. I was a publicist. I
(07:25):
went through this thing of doing all these different things
enough that I could do them professionally, but not feeling
like that was my identity. So if I walked into
a room and somebody said what do you do and
it was a room full of movie producers, I would
say I was a screenwriter, because that's what was relevant.
If I walked into a room full of bookers from
(07:48):
comedy clubs, I would say, I'm a comedian and I
needed to figure out how can I just be one person?
How can I just be hirsh and just be me?
And that is a harder thing, I think than a
lot of us realize, because it isn't just about marketing strategy.
(08:08):
It isn't just about oh, here's the tools to build
a personal brand, or here's the prompt you put into
AI to get your personal brand out. It really is
about looking at your whole life. And it's funny you
made that slip up of saying you started preaching when
you're twenty four and you're gonna be twenty five. I
(08:30):
was like, wow, that's a short it's a short story,
but it's quite a transformation so far, all the things
you've accomplished, And I'm like, but seriously, when you get
to be when you're forties fifty, and you have a
bunch of stuff that you have gone through and either
learned or accomplished or both paying joy all that stuff.
(08:54):
That is who you are now. So the person you
were at twenty four is not even the person you
are at twenty five or twenty seven or forty seven
or fifty. So it's an ever evolving thing. And I
like to feel like maybe this journey that I went
on is part of the reason I'm of service now
(09:18):
to help people with their personal brand because I went
through the same stuff. Did I work in this field? Yeah,
I learned principles of branding and creative direction and advertising
and marketing and all that good stuff. But what I
really bring to it now is who I am now,
(09:39):
And I think that's that lesson that I've learned.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
It's interesting that you as you go through the fact
that you're embracing everything that you were, Like I went
through the same thing musician, preacher and doing all of
these things, not playing an issrum but directing and writing,
and you go in a room like this, God does
everything right. Yes, But then when you get older, you
(10:07):
realize that all of those skill sets are handy. If
I wasn't performing at an early age. I didn't I
don't have stage fright, I don't go and I'm not
afraid to speak in front of people. It was more
difficult speaking into open space in front of a microphone
when you're used to having some type of energy exchange
and interaction. So these are the things that we didn't
(10:27):
have to go through because we've already been involved in
being in front of people and in public speaking and
all of the things that some people have to overcome.
But one of the things that we both probably have
synergistically is that most of our work early on dealt
(10:48):
with external where we were engaging people, you being a
comedian and punchlines right and engaging people and laughter, or
engaging people in contemplate or writing a movie, and all
of those things were looking from within but without Now
we're both looking from without within. How has that transformation
(11:13):
been for you and what are some of the takeaways
that you've lere as you've transformed.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
I think you hit the nail on the head with
it was external at first, and I think what I
thought I was looking for was also external, right, like
I will my writing was clever, but I and even
funny but in some ways superficial. When I was doing
the stand up, I was doing characters, and I thought
(11:41):
the way I looked at it was the characters have depth,
which they did, but they weren't me. They were a mask.
They were a substitute for me that protected me. But
yet I wanted the external success. So I think I
was just very limited in what I was asking of
(12:02):
myself and what I was asking in return. And end
it wasn't like I say, sometimes a little success can
do a lot of damage. Like you you're doing well
enough to keep doing it, but that is necessarily what
you're supposed to be doing. And I think the real
transformation was when I started meditating and I did peak
(12:24):
performance course and I did some quantum consciousness with a coach,
And I think legitimizing that process for myself was major
transformation because on the other side of that, I started
to be able to give more because once I was
(12:44):
looking inside myself and try to figure out what do
I need to fix, what's to hang up here? What
are my stories I'm telling myself, what are my delusions,
what are my foibles? Then I could offer other people
insight in a way that was much more substantial and
not superficial, and so I feel it really deepened me
(13:08):
and that made the journey very different for me and
much more comfortable. Interestingly, no less, no less complicated, really,
but much less, but much more comfortable.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It's funny that you would say that, because that that
kind of sums up what I went through starting to
preach that such early is thinking about our know all
and I'm going to just save the world, and then
going through being tasting the level of success whatever that
looks like in ministry, but really it was more of
(13:42):
presentation and not cultivation because everything was out where, whether
it's the building or the feedback from the people or
and you're like still trying to figure yourself out and
when you have those type of responsibilities and you really
we don't know if it was a meditation in my
(14:04):
yoga practice that helped me to really focus on in turn.
And I know that sounds weird coming from someone who
was saying that a pastor a churchill a lot of
stuff like that, but really the religion has a way
of not looking inwardly at.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Time, because that's really well said, because I think what
happens with people like us who are who have the
ability to be extroverted, because I don't know that you
can put people in a box and say, oh, this
person's an extrovert, this person's an introvert. I think we
can be both. We can be ambiverts, as they call it.
(14:40):
But I think if we look at our presentation of
what we were doing, we were sincere in the in
the in what we were doing. But yet some people
might say, oh, that's fake, or that's not resonating, or
that's not really moving me deeply, and we're like, but
we but I mean it. I'm not trying to pretend
(15:01):
that I care. I would, But when you're when you
have the gift of being able to talk, sometimes you
miss out on what the value is of being silent
and meditation of those things. You're not talking, you're not presenting,
You're just kind of listening. You may be listening to
yourself and your thoughts. You may be listening to to
(15:24):
to music or a guide, you may be listening to
the universe, but you're not getting up in front of
people and talking. And I think when when you have
that ability, that skill, sometimes we overuse it like any instrument,
and we instead of listening to music we're playing, We're
constantly playing.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, I was listening to Sterne and.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Yeah, one of the older musicians on a page I
think there was a liney page pro believe, but he
said in music, and this is a great analogy that
you use, says to the every musician, don't approach the
fact that they're coming into.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
A piece of music with nothing but space, and it
is not filling that space up with a bunch of sound.
Is allowing the space to still resonate in placing the
sound strategically throughout the space, because the most valuable thing
that we can do is listen and have our rest
(16:30):
or And that's powerful. And how was that for you?
Having to always be on?
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Right?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Because once you're a comedian, you have to be on.
You have to be observant, you have to be looking
in a way that we can take something that's tragic
and make it funny, or in a way that we
can So how was that? And now you're teaching other
(16:57):
people how to be silent? How you?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah too, But I'm not even I guess you're right.
Look in a way, I am helping people be silent
and listen to themselves, but I'm also helping them listen
to the audience that they want to reach. That's an
interesting switch in that I learned from stand up comedy,
(17:26):
not from just from being on stage. I learned from
standing in the back of the room and reading the
room and when people would come up to me at
a party or introduce me to somebody and at a
dinner and say, oh, tell me a joke, or that's
the worst thing the comedian can hear, tell me a joke.
Because context is everything. If I walk into a comedy
(17:51):
club and i know I'm on next, and I'm standing
in the back of the room, and I'm watching the
other comedian perform, and I'm seeing how the audience is
receiving them, that's my research right there of what I'm
gonna do when I get on stage. That's how I'm
gonna I'm gonna know what to do. So if I'm
caught unaware and somebody's make me laugh, it doesn't it
(18:13):
doesn't seem to click. You wouldn't meet an accountant at
a cocktail party and say, hey, do my taxes. They
don't know anything about you, they don't know, they don't
have any information, and it's do my taxes, show me
your thing, your skill, your So it's a different it's
a different experience now in that I'm still reading the room.
(18:37):
We're always reading the room, but I feel like I
can be more genuine in what I tell people because
there's there isn't really a difference between the me that's
on a stage, let's say, giving a keynote talk, even
if it's funny, and the me doing a one on
(18:58):
one interview or talking to you off camera and talking
one on one. I'm the same person, So that's a
huge relief not to have to assume are there is
what I call your presenting persona and your work persona
(19:18):
let's say, or your personal person There are different levels.
If you're gonna get up and preach, you're gonna you're
gonna project to the back of the church. You're gonna project.
But that's that doesn't mean that it's not gonna be you.
And I know for myself what I experienced previously was
that I had one person that I had to be
(19:39):
on stage and another person that I was in life.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
And when you start young doing something that that becomes
an issue. And I think that your whole holistic brand
therety because the brand most people identify the brand with
the persona yeah, and the brand as I have, of
course that I sold call the mindful marketer where marketing
(20:06):
is both both material and immaterial, the things that we
have accomplished or the things that people see when we
walk in the room. Right. So if I say, hey,
I'm I'm a pastor. Right, So there's a level of
expectation that comes with that, right, Yeah, when I walk
in room and they're like, oh wow, the pastors got
a drink, and yes, I do drink. Right, But there's
(20:30):
a and I had to learn how to be free
within who I am, because then you come across and authentic. Right.
I don't want to I don't want to sit down
and have a conversation with you and I'm criticizing you
for doing something that I take pledgure in privacy of
my own home because I can't be real with that.
(20:50):
When you talk about a brand and being holistic or
being responsible with the brand, because when I look at
the word holistic, that's what I'm looking at. Responsible brand therapist. Right.
You want somebody to be responsible with their actions, responsible
with their activities because their brain depends on it. How
was that for you? As you started to develop that
(21:11):
out and craft that out, and as you said earlier,
you chose those.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Words yeah specifically, yeah, thank you. So interestingly, what evolved
was the comedy evolved first. So I was still doing comedy,
but I found myself transitioning from doing like voices, characters, impressions,
and all of that external stuff to just being me
(21:43):
and still, like I said, there's a difference between going
up and doing stand up comedy. All the stories aren't
exactly true, it's not there's still a level of performance.
But I didn't I wasn't doing the characters anymore. I
wasn't coming out as someone who wasn't me. And I
learned that from a friend of mine, a comedian named
Rich Ironovich, who does a lot of different voices, characters,
(22:06):
act out. It's all these things that he said to me.
Don't when you go on stage and you open with
let's say a Cuban accenter or some other accent or so,
the audience will never trust you because they don't know
who you really are. Come out as yourself and be
yourself and build that trust with the audience. And that
changed my whole point of view. So that happened while
(22:27):
I was still doing stand up comedy, but I really
leaned into who I was and what I felt, and
that gave way to what I call selling the Truth,
which is the title of my book that's coming out
and and it's on my website and big Bull let
her sell the truth, because that's really all you have
(22:50):
in the end, right, all the bells and whistles and
all the stuff you try and all this other stuff,
you really just have the truth, a value and of me,
whatever it is, that's all I have. I learned that
in comedy, and once I was doing that, as you mentioned,
when we started COVID was I was already I was
(23:16):
doing comedy, but I was also doing brand branding and
creative for footwear brands. I had a business partner and
we had an agency, and we were doing that. When
COVID hit, we couldn't do that anymore. I couldn't perform
on stage. You talked about having that exchange with people
and being used to that energy that you have when
there's an audio, a live audience with stand up and
(23:39):
people tried everything zoom comedy, drive it drive in comedy
where people would be in their cars and honk instead
of laugh. Oh my god, that was crazy, but it
was like I realized that I wanted to continue this
selling the truth idea, and I started my podcast, The
(24:02):
Truth Tastes Funny, because the idea is that the truth
does is weird. Sometimes it is crazy. Sometimes it takes
a little bit of humor to help it go down.
But we have to face it. We have to face it.
It's not going back. Like you said, we're not going back.
We're not going back to what it was before. Even
(24:23):
if we wanted to, we we couldn't, and we're in
a constant state of flux. I loved all of those
things you said because they're so true. We're in this,
we're here now and tomorrow we're gonna be where We're
gonna be here in that experience, and we don't know
what's gonna happen between now and then. So if we
can cling to these little things that we know are
(24:46):
true about ourselves to ourselves, it's not even opinions. It's
like you stub your toe, it hurts or it doesn't,
but that's pretty much the truth, right, that's the reality.
No one can tell you no, you're wrong, or no,
oh it doesn't hurt, or no, you didn't stub your toe.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
It's funny because pressing forward with that point that Rick,
we're not going back, and the fact that you were
able to use calamity to pivot because now you have
you had the opportunity to really stop. There was no
gigs because there was still that same pace and the
(25:26):
sneakers and it is and that you really want to
had the chance to really tap into is that you're
doing right now? How did you? Was it kicking and
screaming for you or was it Woosa?
Speaker 1 (25:40):
It was kicking and screaming. It was because I think
if I look at it in the big picture, in
the long term, the journey, I was kicking and screaming
for twenty years to get here because I kept thinking
that the reward or the goal was the comedy or
the external or whatever it was. And so at first
(26:03):
during COVID, my instinct was to write a show. Right
I was doing. I was recording videos. I was recording
funny videos and things, but that was more to keep
my sanity from going keep from going crazy. I did
a series on YouTube where I played a bunch of
roles that a friend of mine had written this crazy
(26:23):
script and was like, you could I saw your videos,
you could play all the roles, and we did it.
We shot six or seven episodes of this crazy YouTube series.
But all of all of that stuff was me kicking
and screaming to let go of those things. It's not
that there was anything wrong with them, it's just to
(26:46):
get here, I had to really pivot away from the
way I was doing stuff, the things I was doing,
and the things I thought were gonna make me.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Happy because going from a tree additional because I remember
play is going to be shut down for two weeks
and I look to tongue this, I want to see
you guys in two weeks. Well, I haven't done back
in the building since lost a lot of people. But
now I really.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I know.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
When I'm riding up and down the street and I'm
looking at all of these empty commercial buildings, I don't
want to have that.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Yeah, And what I was what we were able to
figure is we can reach a broader audience and not worried.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Because when you're worried about selling the tickets, filling the room,
all those things, the app takes a back seat.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
When you're when you're standing up in and there's probably
people in the room.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Oh yeah, yeah, and and I think I think the
clarity there's something that should be said also, which is
one of the things that frustrated me, was that I
couldn't predict it in any way what my income would
be or what my work would yield. We were my
(28:05):
business partner and I were Everything was word of mouth
than we were just picking up clients as we as
we went through the same rooms. You're going in the room.
It's like fishing. It's like bobbing for apples. You go
in the room, you see who's there, You pick up
a client, or you don't, so you go in the
next But it's all the same. It's all the same community,
(28:27):
which is very comforting. And that's why we stayed in
those communities because we were comfortable. There was nothing more
I could do. I wasn't podcasting before, I wasn't meeting
new people, I wasn't going into two communities. I wasn't
I was just staying in the business I was in
and just going around in a circle and hoping that
(28:48):
it would work out okay. And that's very frustrating when
you have a family, when you have when you're building stuff, Yeah,
it's frustrating. So I think that was amazing your inspiration
in terms of do you talk about driving and looking
at the empty commercial buildings. I didn't want to keep
(29:09):
dipping into that same well and coming up empty and
seeing the business is suffering. I don't have There's nothing
else I can do. What can I do? So I
wanted to create an environment where I could always do
something different. I could always go I could always talk
to different people, or I could always get it. I
(29:31):
could always change up my my my act so to speak,
could always change it up. I could always evolve it.
I could always take control of it. And so I
think that was a big part.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Of it as a holistic brand therapist. When you looked
at that, and if you're talking to Less, they're a
comedian this going through the similar thing and they're trying
to they wait through what would what are some of
the things that you some of the principles are some
(30:06):
of the the things that you like to lean into
to get a person to tap into who they really are.
It true, I amic sounds.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah. The first thing is to go through almost like
a visualization, and say, look if everything went perfectly, If
everything went perfectly for the next twelve to twenty four months,
What would it look like? What would perfection local? What
would I what would success really look like? And it
(30:38):
sounds like an easy question, but I think a lot
of us, yeah, it's not. I think a lot of
us are like, if I get through today, if I
get through today, then I get it. Then I will
have knocked off this list of things that I gotta do,
and I'll have called the vet and I'll have done
this thing. So those are That's how most of us
are able to do. So when I talk to some
(31:00):
I would say what would what would it look like? Now?
A comedian might say I would have this many bookings
or I would have this much stake. And then you
start to go a little deeper. Okay, so what why
is that? Why is that the best case scenario? What
is that? How does that make you feel? Project yourself
(31:20):
into that thing? Now you've done that, you got ten
bookings or whatever you got? What is what does that
feel like? And it's interesting that it'll start to text.
Your eyes will start to change and sometimes they would
even say I would have a better relationship with my wife,
or I would reconnect with my sister, or I would
(31:42):
do it starts to become more personal as they get
more comfortable, and then then it's okay, what is stopping you?
And that's why I call it therapy because it is
much deeper than how much money do you you want
to make in the next I wrote an article how
(32:03):
many times do I have to ex you? But because
people will say, oh, I can ten x your business,
I can three x your grow I can x this amount,
and it's sometimes it's not about multiplying the same thing
you're already doing. If that was actually what you wanted,
that there's strategies to do, that's fine. If I said
(32:25):
what does it look like in the next twelve to
twenty four months, they said, look, my life is perfect.
It's just I'm stuck in this frame and I really
want to be known in all these other countries. And
so that way I can ten times. We come up
with brand strategies that will position your personal brand to
reach the audience you want to reach. But you know,
(32:49):
you got to ask those questions.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Historically, we see that a lot of meetiums suffer from
depression or deep contemplation. And I think that what you're
doing is refreshing because you in order to be funny,
you have to think on a deep level, right, you
have to use the light words. Tomedy is very competitive.
(33:15):
I know that people don't like to compare one another
and stuff like that, but when you're playing a small
room and you think that you're just as funny as
as the god that's playing in the stadium, you're like,
you can't be in any kind of business comparing yourself
to everybody that where you are. In order to be successful,
you got to shoot big. So how was that for you?
(33:38):
Dealing with some rejections and dealing with walking away maybe
feeling unappreciated juxtaposed to where you are now and how
you feel and you're feel using the same muscle, the
contemplation and all of those other things that you have
to do in order to be a great comedian. But
now you're doing something that's that you can make people
(34:00):
laughing what you're doing, but it's also a little bit
more ultruistic.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah. Yeah, the best thing about it is that it
isn't about me. And I thought I thought.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
It.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
I thought it should be like when you say you
look at like I would look at comedians and they're
playing these stadiums, and I thought that's what I should
be doing. And I was like this, and I was like,
I know that they did a lot of work to
get there. Very rarely did I see people playing these
big arenas in stadiums. I had this thing in my head,
(34:35):
the O two arena. There's one in London, there's one
in Australia. They're huge, They're huge arenas. And I was like,
I want to play the O two in London because
I had seen this comedian who had laid it. But
at the same time, it wasn't happening exactly. And I realized,
I think what I did earlier in my career, which
(34:57):
was to help I was working with direct filmmakers and
visual effects artists, editors, composers, and I wasn't doing pr
for those people. And I realized I thought at the
time I didn't belong there. I belonged on the other
side of the camera or the other side of the stage,
or on the stage. It just it's just a relief
(35:18):
to realize that it's not about me, that it's my
client's mission or my client's success. That truly makes me happy.
And yeah, I love getting up on stage, and I
love doing speaking engagements, and I love talking to audiences,
but the audience size is totally not like that. That's
(35:42):
a lot. That's a lot to put on yourself. Oh
I should be playing in front of sixty thousand people.
And I don't know when that switch flipped exactly, but
I know that it had a lot to do with
that inner exploration because I think that just changed what
(36:03):
the desired outcome was. I think that the idea of
you know what, my one of my good friends calls
the fame bug. People have the fame bug. They want
to be on stage, they want to do that, and
it becomes the primary goal. And that's very self involved.
(36:25):
So if you're someone who has a family and you're
someone who loves your family, you're someone who is who
loves people, really, that's not really the place for you
because that's a very solitary pursuit.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
And if you're within that mindset and listen to me
very clearly, everyone, that's how people end up under Diddy's
table because they'll do anything.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
That's a great that's a great phrase.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
They'll do anything they did there. And if someone is saying,
how bad do you want it? Yeah, I want it
really bad, and like this is what everybody's doing, Like
this is what everybody's doing.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yeah, to build on that, it's and is that really
gonna make you happy? And I you know what I mean,
not being under the table, but being but being getting
to the next level. Right, So let's say it works.
You do your time under the table, and then you're
now you're at the table. But now what you still
(37:26):
are that person? You still did that or made that sacrifice.
Because now that's assuming that's that that you're that you're
that's assuming that this is all part of a willing
kind of a plan because it can apply to anything.
I'm going to compromise X to get to why, as
(37:51):
opposed to I'm gonna work my butt off to get
to why. That's understood. Ask any found or ask any entrepreneur, solopreneur, coach, consultant.
Ask them if it was easy. Ask them if it
was easy. No, of course it's not easy. Of course
(38:12):
it's not ease. Ask them if there are short cuts,
Ask them if there's any good short cuts. There aren't.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
No, and there aren't. Because I was just talking to
a friend of mine the other day, and I love baseball.
We were talking about the steroids error. Because there's a
lot of people that played in that era. That's not
making it to the whole thing. And I'm like Roger
Cumbs is a Hall of Famer with stoo raids, a
lot of those guys with the question is if you
(38:41):
could take a pill a shot to extend your career,
to feed your family, and the only repercussion is public vitriol,
would you do it?
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, got me playing to thirty five after plays on
forty five.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah. I asked them at forty five, asked them at
forty five. They're the only ones who can answer that question.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
The only one question.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I can't get a question because I chose not to
take that pill. I chose that I did it, and
I even made the choice instinctively when I was younger
not to do it. But I think I suffered for
many years thinking that I had not maybe maybe made
the wrong choice. Maybe I should have taken that pill.
(39:30):
Maybe I should have given up the whole idea of
having a family or raising kids or doing up. Maybe
I should have done that, But I don't. I don't
think in my case that I don't regret not taking
that pill, so to speak.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
And the people that take the pill, oftentimes as in
Pete Rose, who was gambling right now. Twenty years later,
all I did was take the pill. When you gonna
When are you gonna let it go? Is some people
won't let it go. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Yeah. And the fact is that we all make our bed.
We make our bed whatever it is. So a good
example of making your bed is somebody like Paul Newman,
who you know as an actor, reached pinnacle whatever, but
was never interested in being famous and signing autographs. At
(40:24):
the time, that was the thing that would There was
no cameo or whatever it was, but you wanted to
You walk down the street and you're Paul Newman, and
everybody wanted an autograph. And he didn't sign autographs. But
he from what I heard, he was a super nice
person and a super grounded person, and he would talk
to people and he would talk to you, but he's
(40:46):
you don't want my autograph. It doesn't mean anything. It's
not you don't I don't want to do it, and
I don't want to be judged that way, and I
don't want to and I think it's just a decision.
But he realized I made a decision to be in
the public eye if I wanted to succeed at what
(41:06):
I was doing. If I wanted to be a really
fine actor and I wanted to take care of my family,
I had to take that pill. But I didn't have
to change who I was.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, this is why you're a holistic brand therrapist. Yea,
because you're able to see things through. Talked about your
book and the recommend a book that you if you
was to it could be fiction and nonfiction. But first
talked about your book and when is when can we
expect to release date? And all of that.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Yeah, thank you. So the book is called Selling the
Truth as semoir. I call it a semi memoir, a
semoir with insights for life and business, and I combine
business and life. And it's a semi memoir because it
talks a little bit about what my journey was, but
(41:58):
it also is really there for the reader who is
looking to live that selling the truth existence. They want
to sell the truth, they maybe don't know how, and
they can learn from some of the mistakes I made,
some of the calls that I've that things that have
(42:21):
been right, things that I've just learned from get it
wrong with humor and with warmth and empathy and not
really with judgment of anybody else, or am I or myself.
And that's a thing that I it took me a
long time to learn because I was a very harsh
critic of myself. I was a very I was a
(42:43):
very unforgiving judge of my of myself, and I think
that can cost us a lot of time if you
want to learn about truth in advertising and how to
conduct yourself in business for the greatest results that are
truly to make you happy, not just make money, although
(43:03):
money is great. That was another lesson I had to learn.
I thought I grew up thinking that money was corrupt
and money was for people who weren't honest and all
that stuff. And if you want to get firsthand insight
into how to sell the truth to the audience you
want to sell it to. It's a really fun book,
(43:24):
and it's it's going to be out on at select bookstores.
It will not be mass marketed in that way, because
I really believe that you have to find your audience
and they have to find you in a way that's
truthful and sincere, but also innovative and fresh. And so
(43:45):
I'm going to be going to indie booksellers all over
the country, and I think it's going to be a
fun campaign, but look for it this summer. If you
go to Hirschrappoon dot com, r E P h U
or Yes, brandbuilders dot com, you can sign up for
(44:05):
the pre order.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
There. There you have it. Everybody, I told you we
since you're at the field of the masters, we have
conversations that help you eve all vir life and that's
what it's all about. We don't actually to cash out
vimos or any of those things, but what we do
at that you hit and subscribe your lights. Your subscriptions
help these conversations get into the ears of people that
(44:27):
need it. Somebody needs to hear Hersheit's story and this conversation,
so hit and subscribe. Also, if you're listening on a
platform where you can leave a review, where there's pod
page or pot page, Apple, Spotify, pod it's one of
those other pod things, there's only three places that you
(44:48):
can leave a review. Do leave frof star review helps
us to get hired in the algorithm. And finally, don't
walk with your head down. Don't walk with and excuses.
Don't walk being as if you're in that quoted not
your true authentic self. Those who are part of the
walking Victory family. You know how we walk. We walk
in victory. Hirst Faral is a part of the family.
(45:09):
Enjoy the rest of the day the
And meditation of those things. You're not talking, you're not presenting,
You're just kind of listening. You may be listening to
yourself and your thoughts. You may be listening to music
or a guide.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Good afternoon, good day, good evening. I don't know what
time you're listening or were you listening from shaboy your
host Lauron Tillman, and you are wit me for another
episode of Walk in Victory Speaking of victory walk.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Warning, this is a public service announcement. The Walk in
Victory podcast is where we have conversations purpose to evolve lives.
You may not want to evolve, then tune into another
bleeping podcast. Everyone else enjoy the show and here's our
host you.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
No, good day, good evening. I don't know what time
you're listening or are you listening from this shab boy,
Your host Lauron Tillman, and you are with me for
another episode of Walk in Victory. Speaking of victory walks,
we've all had to those of us who have gotten
to the aside and would be honest, had to pivot
(01:03):
After COVID, I was doing yoga and mindfulness in schools
and we were really taking off in skyrocketing and so
they get yoga hitting. Yoga didn't hit it, COVID hit.
And once COVID hit and came back, everything slowed down.
The first of all, the New York City moved from
(01:23):
the curriculum which required more mindfulness and stuff like that,
and they changed their core curriculums, and so I had
to pivot us a company. I have to pivot us
as a brand, and a lot of people have was
going through that, and you hear over and over people
who have built something pre COVID, post COVID, they had
(01:44):
to find themselves building again. But the other thing that
wound up happening is that there was plenty of opportunity
for online space. The only COVID I took the class
in podcasting already had a podcast, but I really didn't
understand the systems of podcasts. Where As that allowed me
(02:07):
to take the challenge, allow me to go into a clients,
allow me to become better at the craft of podcasts,
and it allowed me to see podcasts and through a
different lens. And now we have a production company which
we produce other podcasts, and we're going into podcast coaching
and we're doing some other stuff. But everything that we're
doing is connected to what we were doing as a
(02:27):
brand through the urban Yogis, which is mindfulness. And still
now I was able to develop a mindset to really
bring everything that I together under an umbrella just to
post segment and everything where I was preaching. I've been
preaching since I was twenty five, and sometimes you get
want to get away from that stuff, right, But now
(02:49):
I understand that there's a blend through the advent of
neuroscience and spirituality. It is a unique blend of entrepreneurial ship,
spirituality and mindful best mindful practices of movements. And it's
like everything came into our world house. So we went
(03:10):
from a place where everyone was busy and you're trying
to find your footing and niche down into one thing
to now where people are really more cognitive and aware
that there's more life than making money. There's modern life
than just being busy, and really people want to find balance,
(03:32):
even if they're eightysts. They want to find balance between
the conscious and the subconscious mind or traumas and pasts,
and we all experienced as a world trauma at the
same time. So it's not like something happened at your
neighbor's house well and affected. We all were affected. We
(03:53):
all lost a sense of touch. But here's the funny
thing that happened during that time, not to harp for
a COVID moment. When we came out of it, the
world as we knew it changed. There was a hard reset,
and I'm going to tell you guys, it's not coming
back the world as we known it before it had
a hard reset. Right to stop and fast forward ahead.
(04:18):
We are now living in a new era and the
aier And if you look at historically, anytime you had
major transformations, whether it's in currency or technology, it always
came on the heels of calamity. Curncy change, calamity, technology change, calamity.
(04:39):
So this is this pattern. I don't know. I'm not
saying I'm not conspiracy theorists, but what I will say
is that throughout history, and you can go as far
back as you want to, throughout history, there's always a
major event that's unexplainable, and following that event, there's a
(05:01):
calculated push to make some type of transformation in society.
And we're living in the midst of that transformation. And
those of you who are listening we're living in history.
We're living in history. I told you, as we bring
in I mean preaching to twenty four, I'll be twenty five.
You're just old. I'll be twenty five years old. I'll
(05:21):
be fifty years old. And oftentimes when I look at
the Bible, we talk about interpretation and systems of interpretation,
and the first thing that we have to look at
is historical interpretation. How were the people in their time?
So it's easy for us to say, oh, if I
was there, I would have did this different Now I
(05:42):
did that differently, we can't really say that because we
weren't living in that time. The culture was different, the
settings were different, everything was different. And it's the same
thing where we are right now. Someone is going to
look back to where we are fifty years from now
and interpret how we are interpreting in this time, and
they're going to look at this historical moment. I say,
(06:05):
if I was there, I would have been a billionaire
because I would have took advantage of this, and I
would have. But if our insight is twenty twenty, are
you willing to roll the dice? Are you willing to
try something different? And that's what walking victory is about
helping conversations to push the limit, push you to the
place of imagination in a place where you can see
yourself past where you are hersh how are you doing, sir?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I'm doing great. And Ron, thank you. That was very
interesting to hear that take coming in. I totally agree
with that.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, well, tell out audious a little bit about yourself
as much as you're willing to share, and we're gonna
jump and dive right into it.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, so I can't. I came to do what I do,
which is to be a holistic brand therapist. And I
use those words very intentionally because I think that the
personal brand is really all about who you are in total.
It's your whole personality, but framed in a way that
(07:03):
helps you climb that next mountain. Because your audience wants
to hear from you a certain way. They don't want
to be confused. They want to know what you bring
to the party, but they also want to know who
are you. It's like you you ask who am I.
I'm a creative person. I did stand up comedy, I
wrote a few little movies. I was a publicist. I
(07:25):
went through this thing of doing all these different things
enough that I could do them professionally, but not feeling
like that was my identity. So if I walked into
a room and somebody said what do you do and
it was a room full of movie producers, I would
say I was a screenwriter, because that's what was relevant.
If I walked into a room full of bookers from
(07:48):
comedy clubs, I would say, I'm a comedian and I
needed to figure out how can I just be one person?
How can I just be hirsh and just be me?
And that is a harder thing, I think than a
lot of us realize, because it isn't just about marketing strategy.
(08:08):
It isn't just about oh, here's the tools to build
a personal brand, or here's the prompt you put into
AI to get your personal brand out. It really is
about looking at your whole life. And it's funny you
made that slip up of saying you started preaching when
you're twenty four and you're gonna be twenty five. I
(08:30):
was like, wow, that's a short it's a short story,
but it's quite a transformation so far, all the things
you've accomplished, And I'm like, but seriously, when you get
to be when you're forties fifty, and you have a
bunch of stuff that you have gone through and either
learned or accomplished or both paying joy all that stuff.
(08:54):
That is who you are now. So the person you
were at twenty four is not even the person you
are at twenty five or twenty seven or forty seven
or fifty. So it's an ever evolving thing. And I
like to feel like maybe this journey that I went
on is part of the reason I'm of service now
(09:18):
to help people with their personal brand because I went
through the same stuff. Did I work in this field? Yeah,
I learned principles of branding and creative direction and advertising
and marketing and all that good stuff. But what I
really bring to it now is who I am now,
(09:39):
And I think that's that lesson that I've learned.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
It's interesting that you as you go through the fact
that you're embracing everything that you were, Like I went
through the same thing musician, preacher and doing all of
these things, not playing an issrum but directing and writing,
and you go in a room like this, God does
everything right. Yes, But then when you get older, you
(10:07):
realize that all of those skill sets are handy. If
I wasn't performing at an early age. I didn't I
don't have stage fright, I don't go and I'm not
afraid to speak in front of people. It was more
difficult speaking into open space in front of a microphone
when you're used to having some type of energy exchange
and interaction. So these are the things that we didn't
(10:27):
have to go through because we've already been involved in
being in front of people and in public speaking and
all of the things that some people have to overcome.
But one of the things that we both probably have
synergistically is that most of our work early on dealt
(10:48):
with external where we were engaging people, you being a
comedian and punchlines right and engaging people and laughter, or
engaging people in contemplate or writing a movie, and all
of those things were looking from within but without Now
we're both looking from without within. How has that transformation
(11:13):
been for you and what are some of the takeaways
that you've lere as you've transformed.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
I think you hit the nail on the head with
it was external at first, and I think what I
thought I was looking for was also external, right, like
I will my writing was clever, but I and even
funny but in some ways superficial. When I was doing
the stand up, I was doing characters, and I thought
(11:41):
the way I looked at it was the characters have depth,
which they did, but they weren't me. They were a mask.
They were a substitute for me that protected me. But
yet I wanted the external success. So I think I
was just very limited in what I was asking of
(12:02):
myself and what I was asking in return. And end
it wasn't like I say, sometimes a little success can
do a lot of damage. Like you you're doing well
enough to keep doing it, but that is necessarily what
you're supposed to be doing. And I think the real
transformation was when I started meditating and I did peak
(12:24):
performance course and I did some quantum consciousness with a coach,
And I think legitimizing that process for myself was major
transformation because on the other side of that, I started
to be able to give more because once I was
(12:44):
looking inside myself and try to figure out what do
I need to fix, what's to hang up here? What
are my stories I'm telling myself, what are my delusions,
what are my foibles? Then I could offer other people
insight in a way that was much more substantial and
not superficial, and so I feel it really deepened me
(13:08):
and that made the journey very different for me and
much more comfortable. Interestingly, no less, no less complicated, really,
but much less, but much more comfortable.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It's funny that you would say that, because that that
kind of sums up what I went through starting to
preach that such early is thinking about our know all
and I'm going to just save the world, and then
going through being tasting the level of success whatever that
looks like in ministry, but really it was more of
(13:42):
presentation and not cultivation because everything was out where, whether
it's the building or the feedback from the people or
and you're like still trying to figure yourself out and
when you have those type of responsibilities and you really
we don't know if it was a meditation in my
(14:04):
yoga practice that helped me to really focus on in turn.
And I know that sounds weird coming from someone who
was saying that a pastor a churchill a lot of
stuff like that, but really the religion has a way
of not looking inwardly at.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Time, because that's really well said, because I think what
happens with people like us who are who have the
ability to be extroverted, because I don't know that you
can put people in a box and say, oh, this
person's an extrovert, this person's an introvert. I think we
can be both. We can be ambiverts, as they call it.
(14:40):
But I think if we look at our presentation of
what we were doing, we were sincere in the in
the in what we were doing. But yet some people
might say, oh, that's fake, or that's not resonating, or
that's not really moving me deeply, and we're like, but
we but I mean it. I'm not trying to pretend
(15:01):
that I care. I would, But when you're when you
have the gift of being able to talk, sometimes you
miss out on what the value is of being silent
and meditation of those things. You're not talking, you're not presenting,
You're just kind of listening. You may be listening to
yourself and your thoughts. You may be listening to to
(15:24):
to music or a guide, you may be listening to
the universe, but you're not getting up in front of
people and talking. And I think when when you have
that ability, that skill, sometimes we overuse it like any instrument,
and we instead of listening to music we're playing, We're
constantly playing.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, I was listening to Sterne and.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Yeah, one of the older musicians on a page I
think there was a liney page pro believe, but he
said in music, and this is a great analogy that
you use, says to the every musician, don't approach the
fact that they're coming into.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
A piece of music with nothing but space, and it
is not filling that space up with a bunch of sound.
Is allowing the space to still resonate in placing the
sound strategically throughout the space, because the most valuable thing
that we can do is listen and have our rest
(16:30):
or And that's powerful. And how was that for you?
Having to always be on?
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Right?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Because once you're a comedian, you have to be on.
You have to be observant, you have to be looking
in a way that we can take something that's tragic
and make it funny, or in a way that we
can So how was that? And now you're teaching other
(16:57):
people how to be silent? How you?
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Yeah too, But I'm not even I guess you're right.
Look in a way, I am helping people be silent
and listen to themselves, but I'm also helping them listen
to the audience that they want to reach. That's an
interesting switch in that I learned from stand up comedy,
(17:26):
not from just from being on stage. I learned from
standing in the back of the room and reading the
room and when people would come up to me at
a party or introduce me to somebody and at a
dinner and say, oh, tell me a joke, or that's
the worst thing the comedian can hear, tell me a joke.
Because context is everything. If I walk into a comedy
(17:51):
club and i know I'm on next, and I'm standing
in the back of the room, and I'm watching the
other comedian perform, and I'm seeing how the audience is
receiving them, that's my research right there of what I'm
gonna do when I get on stage. That's how I'm
gonna I'm gonna know what to do. So if I'm
caught unaware and somebody's make me laugh, it doesn't it
(18:13):
doesn't seem to click. You wouldn't meet an accountant at
a cocktail party and say, hey, do my taxes. They
don't know anything about you, they don't know, they don't
have any information, and it's do my taxes, show me
your thing, your skill, your So it's a different it's
a different experience now in that I'm still reading the room.
(18:37):
We're always reading the room, but I feel like I
can be more genuine in what I tell people because
there's there isn't really a difference between the me that's
on a stage, let's say, giving a keynote talk, even
if it's funny, and the me doing a one on
(18:58):
one interview or talking to you off camera and talking
one on one. I'm the same person, So that's a
huge relief not to have to assume are there is
what I call your presenting persona and your work persona
(19:18):
let's say, or your personal person There are different levels.
If you're gonna get up and preach, you're gonna you're
gonna project to the back of the church. You're gonna project.
But that's that doesn't mean that it's not gonna be you.
And I know for myself what I experienced previously was
that I had one person that I had to be
(19:39):
on stage and another person that I was in life.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
And when you start young doing something that that becomes
an issue. And I think that your whole holistic brand
therety because the brand most people identify the brand with
the persona yeah, and the brand as I have, of
course that I sold call the mindful marketer where marketing
(20:06):
is both both material and immaterial, the things that we
have accomplished or the things that people see when we
walk in the room. Right. So if I say, hey,
I'm I'm a pastor. Right, So there's a level of
expectation that comes with that, right, Yeah, when I walk
in room and they're like, oh wow, the pastors got
a drink, and yes, I do drink. Right, But there's
(20:30):
a and I had to learn how to be free
within who I am, because then you come across and authentic. Right.
I don't want to I don't want to sit down
and have a conversation with you and I'm criticizing you
for doing something that I take pledgure in privacy of
my own home because I can't be real with that.
(20:50):
When you talk about a brand and being holistic or
being responsible with the brand, because when I look at
the word holistic, that's what I'm looking at. Responsible brand therapist. Right.
You want somebody to be responsible with their actions, responsible
with their activities because their brain depends on it. How
was that for you? As you started to develop that
(21:11):
out and craft that out, and as you said earlier,
you chose those.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Words yeah specifically, yeah, thank you. So interestingly, what evolved
was the comedy evolved first. So I was still doing comedy,
but I found myself transitioning from doing like voices, characters, impressions,
and all of that external stuff to just being me
(21:43):
and still, like I said, there's a difference between going
up and doing stand up comedy. All the stories aren't
exactly true, it's not there's still a level of performance.
But I didn't I wasn't doing the characters anymore. I
wasn't coming out as someone who wasn't me. And I
learned that from a friend of mine, a comedian named
Rich Ironovich, who does a lot of different voices, characters,
(22:06):
act out. It's all these things that he said to me.
Don't when you go on stage and you open with
let's say a Cuban accenter or some other accent or so,
the audience will never trust you because they don't know
who you really are. Come out as yourself and be
yourself and build that trust with the audience. And that
changed my whole point of view. So that happened while
(22:27):
I was still doing stand up comedy, but I really
leaned into who I was and what I felt, and
that gave way to what I call selling the Truth,
which is the title of my book that's coming out
and and it's on my website and big Bull let
her sell the truth, because that's really all you have
(22:50):
in the end, right, all the bells and whistles and
all the stuff you try and all this other stuff,
you really just have the truth, a value and of me,
whatever it is, that's all I have. I learned that
in comedy, and once I was doing that, as you mentioned,
when we started COVID was I was already I was
(23:16):
doing comedy, but I was also doing brand branding and
creative for footwear brands. I had a business partner and
we had an agency, and we were doing that. When
COVID hit, we couldn't do that anymore. I couldn't perform
on stage. You talked about having that exchange with people
and being used to that energy that you have when
there's an audio, a live audience with stand up and
(23:39):
people tried everything zoom comedy, drive it drive in comedy
where people would be in their cars and honk instead
of laugh. Oh my god, that was crazy, but it
was like I realized that I wanted to continue this
selling the truth idea, and I started my podcast, The
(24:02):
Truth Tastes Funny, because the idea is that the truth
does is weird. Sometimes it is crazy. Sometimes it takes
a little bit of humor to help it go down.
But we have to face it. We have to face it.
It's not going back. Like you said, we're not going back.
We're not going back to what it was before. Even
(24:23):
if we wanted to, we we couldn't, and we're in
a constant state of flux. I loved all of those
things you said because they're so true. We're in this,
we're here now and tomorrow we're gonna be where We're
gonna be here in that experience, and we don't know
what's gonna happen between now and then. So if we
can cling to these little things that we know are
(24:46):
true about ourselves to ourselves, it's not even opinions. It's
like you stub your toe, it hurts or it doesn't,
but that's pretty much the truth, right, that's the reality.
No one can tell you no, you're wrong, or no,
oh it doesn't hurt, or no, you didn't stub your toe.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
It's funny because pressing forward with that point that Rick,
we're not going back, and the fact that you were
able to use calamity to pivot because now you have
you had the opportunity to really stop. There was no
gigs because there was still that same pace and the
(25:26):
sneakers and it is and that you really want to
had the chance to really tap into is that you're
doing right now? How did you? Was it kicking and
screaming for you or was it Woosa?
Speaker 1 (25:40):
It was kicking and screaming. It was because I think
if I look at it in the big picture, in
the long term, the journey, I was kicking and screaming
for twenty years to get here because I kept thinking
that the reward or the goal was the comedy or
the external or whatever it was. And so at first
(26:03):
during COVID, my instinct was to write a show. Right
I was doing. I was recording videos. I was recording
funny videos and things, but that was more to keep
my sanity from going keep from going crazy. I did
a series on YouTube where I played a bunch of
roles that a friend of mine had written this crazy
(26:23):
script and was like, you could I saw your videos,
you could play all the roles, and we did it.
We shot six or seven episodes of this crazy YouTube series.
But all of all of that stuff was me kicking
and screaming to let go of those things. It's not
that there was anything wrong with them, it's just to
(26:46):
get here, I had to really pivot away from the
way I was doing stuff, the things I was doing,
and the things I thought were gonna make me.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Happy because going from a tree additional because I remember
play is going to be shut down for two weeks
and I look to tongue this, I want to see
you guys in two weeks. Well, I haven't done back
in the building since lost a lot of people. But
now I really.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
I know.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
When I'm riding up and down the street and I'm
looking at all of these empty commercial buildings, I don't
want to have that.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Yeah, And what I was what we were able to
figure is we can reach a broader audience and not worried.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Because when you're worried about selling the tickets, filling the room,
all those things, the app takes a back seat.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
When you're when you're standing up in and there's probably
people in the room.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Oh yeah, yeah, and and I think I think the
clarity there's something that should be said also, which is
one of the things that frustrated me, was that I
couldn't predict it in any way what my income would
be or what my work would yield. We were my
(28:05):
business partner and I were Everything was word of mouth
than we were just picking up clients as we as
we went through the same rooms. You're going in the room.
It's like fishing. It's like bobbing for apples. You go
in the room, you see who's there, You pick up
a client, or you don't, so you go in the
next But it's all the same. It's all the same community,
(28:27):
which is very comforting. And that's why we stayed in
those communities because we were comfortable. There was nothing more
I could do. I wasn't podcasting before, I wasn't meeting
new people, I wasn't going into two communities. I wasn't
I was just staying in the business I was in
and just going around in a circle and hoping that
(28:48):
it would work out okay. And that's very frustrating when
you have a family, when you have when you're building stuff, Yeah,
it's frustrating. So I think that was amazing your inspiration
in terms of do you talk about driving and looking
at the empty commercial buildings. I didn't want to keep
(29:09):
dipping into that same well and coming up empty and
seeing the business is suffering. I don't have There's nothing
else I can do. What can I do? So I
wanted to create an environment where I could always do
something different. I could always go I could always talk
to different people, or I could always get it. I
(29:31):
could always change up my my my act so to speak,
could always change it up. I could always evolve it.
I could always take control of it. And so I
think that was a big part.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Of it as a holistic brand therapist. When you looked
at that, and if you're talking to Less, they're a
comedian this going through the similar thing and they're trying
to they wait through what would what are some of
the things that you some of the principles are some
(30:06):
of the the things that you like to lean into
to get a person to tap into who they really are.
It true, I amic sounds.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Yeah. The first thing is to go through almost like
a visualization, and say, look if everything went perfectly, If
everything went perfectly for the next twelve to twenty four months,
What would it look like? What would perfection local? What
would I what would success really look like? And it
(30:38):
sounds like an easy question, but I think a lot
of us, yeah, it's not. I think a lot of
us are like, if I get through today, if I
get through today, then I get it. Then I will
have knocked off this list of things that I gotta do,
and I'll have called the vet and I'll have done
this thing. So those are That's how most of us
are able to do. So when I talk to some
(31:00):
I would say what would what would it look like? Now?
A comedian might say I would have this many bookings
or I would have this much stake. And then you
start to go a little deeper. Okay, so what why
is that? Why is that the best case scenario? What
is that? How does that make you feel? Project yourself
(31:20):
into that thing? Now you've done that, you got ten
bookings or whatever you got? What is what does that
feel like? And it's interesting that it'll start to text.
Your eyes will start to change and sometimes they would
even say I would have a better relationship with my wife,
or I would reconnect with my sister, or I would
(31:42):
do it starts to become more personal as they get
more comfortable, and then then it's okay, what is stopping you?
And that's why I call it therapy because it is
much deeper than how much money do you you want
to make in the next I wrote an article how
(32:03):
many times do I have to ex you? But because
people will say, oh, I can ten x your business,
I can three x your grow I can x this amount,
and it's sometimes it's not about multiplying the same thing
you're already doing. If that was actually what you wanted,
that there's strategies to do, that's fine. If I said
(32:25):
what does it look like in the next twelve to
twenty four months, they said, look, my life is perfect.
It's just I'm stuck in this frame and I really
want to be known in all these other countries. And
so that way I can ten times. We come up
with brand strategies that will position your personal brand to
reach the audience you want to reach. But you know,
(32:49):
you got to ask those questions.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Historically, we see that a lot of meetiums suffer from
depression or deep contemplation. And I think that what you're
doing is refreshing because you in order to be funny,
you have to think on a deep level, right, you
have to use the light words. Tomedy is very competitive.
(33:15):
I know that people don't like to compare one another
and stuff like that, but when you're playing a small
room and you think that you're just as funny as
as the god that's playing in the stadium, you're like,
you can't be in any kind of business comparing yourself
to everybody that where you are. In order to be successful,
you got to shoot big. So how was that for you?
(33:38):
Dealing with some rejections and dealing with walking away maybe
feeling unappreciated juxtaposed to where you are now and how
you feel and you're feel using the same muscle, the
contemplation and all of those other things that you have
to do in order to be a great comedian. But
now you're doing something that's that you can make people
(34:00):
laughing what you're doing, but it's also a little bit
more ultruistic.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah. Yeah, the best thing about it is that it
isn't about me. And I thought I thought.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
It.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
I thought it should be like when you say you
look at like I would look at comedians and they're
playing these stadiums, and I thought that's what I should
be doing. And I was like this, and I was like,
I know that they did a lot of work to
get there. Very rarely did I see people playing these
big arenas in stadiums. I had this thing in my head,
(34:35):
the O two arena. There's one in London, there's one
in Australia. They're huge, They're huge arenas. And I was like,
I want to play the O two in London because
I had seen this comedian who had laid it. But
at the same time, it wasn't happening exactly. And I realized,
I think what I did earlier in my career, which
(34:57):
was to help I was working with direct filmmakers and
visual effects artists, editors, composers, and I wasn't doing pr
for those people. And I realized I thought at the
time I didn't belong there. I belonged on the other
side of the camera or the other side of the stage,
or on the stage. It just it's just a relief
(35:18):
to realize that it's not about me, that it's my
client's mission or my client's success. That truly makes me happy.
And yeah, I love getting up on stage, and I
love doing speaking engagements, and I love talking to audiences,
but the audience size is totally not like that. That's
(35:42):
a lot. That's a lot to put on yourself. Oh
I should be playing in front of sixty thousand people.
And I don't know when that switch flipped exactly, but
I know that it had a lot to do with
that inner exploration because I think that just changed what
(36:03):
the desired outcome was. I think that the idea of
you know what, my one of my good friends calls
the fame bug. People have the fame bug. They want
to be on stage, they want to do that, and
it becomes the primary goal. And that's very self involved.
(36:25):
So if you're someone who has a family and you're
someone who loves your family, you're someone who is who
loves people, really, that's not really the place for you
because that's a very solitary pursuit.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
And if you're within that mindset and listen to me
very clearly, everyone, that's how people end up under Diddy's
table because they'll do anything.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
That's a great that's a great phrase.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
They'll do anything they did there. And if someone is saying,
how bad do you want it? Yeah, I want it
really bad, and like this is what everybody's doing, Like
this is what everybody's doing.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yeah, to build on that, it's and is that really
gonna make you happy? And I you know what I mean,
not being under the table, but being but being getting
to the next level. Right, So let's say it works.
You do your time under the table, and then you're
now you're at the table. But now what you still
(37:26):
are that person? You still did that or made that sacrifice.
Because now that's assuming that's that that you're that you're
that's assuming that this is all part of a willing
kind of a plan because it can apply to anything.
I'm going to compromise X to get to why, as
(37:51):
opposed to I'm gonna work my butt off to get
to why. That's understood. Ask any found or ask any entrepreneur, solopreneur, coach, consultant.
Ask them if it was easy. Ask them if it
was easy. No, of course it's not easy. Of course
(38:12):
it's not ease. Ask them if there are short cuts,
Ask them if there's any good short cuts. There aren't.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
No, and there aren't. Because I was just talking to
a friend of mine the other day, and I love baseball.
We were talking about the steroids error. Because there's a
lot of people that played in that era. That's not
making it to the whole thing. And I'm like Roger
Cumbs is a Hall of Famer with stoo raids, a
lot of those guys with the question is if you
(38:41):
could take a pill a shot to extend your career,
to feed your family, and the only repercussion is public vitriol,
would you do it?
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, got me playing to thirty five after plays on
forty five.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah. I asked them at forty five, asked them at
forty five. They're the only ones who can answer that question.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
The only one question.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I can't get a question because I chose not to
take that pill. I chose that I did it, and
I even made the choice instinctively when I was younger
not to do it. But I think I suffered for
many years thinking that I had not maybe maybe made
the wrong choice. Maybe I should have taken that pill.
(39:30):
Maybe I should have given up the whole idea of
having a family or raising kids or doing up. Maybe
I should have done that, But I don't. I don't
think in my case that I don't regret not taking
that pill, so to speak.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
And the people that take the pill, oftentimes as in
Pete Rose, who was gambling right now. Twenty years later,
all I did was take the pill. When you gonna
When are you gonna let it go? Is some people
won't let it go. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Yeah. And the fact is that we all make our bed.
We make our bed whatever it is. So a good
example of making your bed is somebody like Paul Newman,
who you know as an actor, reached pinnacle whatever, but
was never interested in being famous and signing autographs. At
(40:24):
the time, that was the thing that would There was
no cameo or whatever it was, but you wanted to
You walk down the street and you're Paul Newman, and
everybody wanted an autograph. And he didn't sign autographs. But
he from what I heard, he was a super nice
person and a super grounded person, and he would talk
to people and he would talk to you, but he's
(40:46):
you don't want my autograph. It doesn't mean anything. It's
not you don't I don't want to do it, and
I don't want to be judged that way, and I
don't want to and I think it's just a decision.
But he realized I made a decision to be in
the public eye if I wanted to succeed at what
(41:06):
I was doing. If I wanted to be a really
fine actor and I wanted to take care of my family,
I had to take that pill. But I didn't have
to change who I was.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, this is why you're a holistic brand therrapist. Yea,
because you're able to see things through. Talked about your
book and the recommend a book that you if you
was to it could be fiction and nonfiction. But first
talked about your book and when is when can we
expect to release date? And all of that.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
Yeah, thank you. So the book is called Selling the
Truth as semoir. I call it a semi memoir, a
semoir with insights for life and business, and I combine
business and life. And it's a semi memoir because it
talks a little bit about what my journey was, but
(41:58):
it also is really there for the reader who is
looking to live that selling the truth existence. They want
to sell the truth, they maybe don't know how, and
they can learn from some of the mistakes I made,
some of the calls that I've that things that have
(42:21):
been right, things that I've just learned from get it
wrong with humor and with warmth and empathy and not
really with judgment of anybody else, or am I or myself.
And that's a thing that I it took me a
long time to learn because I was a very harsh
critic of myself. I was a very I was a
(42:43):
very unforgiving judge of my of myself, and I think
that can cost us a lot of time if you
want to learn about truth in advertising and how to
conduct yourself in business for the greatest results that are
truly to make you happy, not just make money, although
(43:03):
money is great. That was another lesson I had to learn.
I thought I grew up thinking that money was corrupt
and money was for people who weren't honest and all
that stuff. And if you want to get firsthand insight
into how to sell the truth to the audience you
want to sell it to. It's a really fun book,
(43:24):
and it's it's going to be out on at select bookstores.
It will not be mass marketed in that way, because
I really believe that you have to find your audience
and they have to find you in a way that's
truthful and sincere, but also innovative and fresh. And so
(43:45):
I'm going to be going to indie booksellers all over
the country, and I think it's going to be a
fun campaign, but look for it this summer. If you
go to Hirschrappoon dot com, r E P h U
or Yes, brandbuilders dot com, you can sign up for
(44:05):
the pre order.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
There. There you have it. Everybody, I told you we
since you're at the field of the masters, we have
conversations that help you eve all vir life and that's
what it's all about. We don't actually to cash out
vimos or any of those things, but what we do
at that you hit and subscribe your lights. Your subscriptions
help these conversations get into the ears of people that
(44:27):
need it. Somebody needs to hear Hersheit's story and this conversation,
so hit and subscribe. Also, if you're listening on a
platform where you can leave a review, where there's pod
page or pot page, Apple, Spotify, pod it's one of
those other pod things, there's only three places that you
(44:48):
can leave a review. Do leave frof star review helps
us to get hired in the algorithm. And finally, don't
walk with your head down. Don't walk with and excuses.
Don't walk being as if you're in that quoted not
your true authentic self. Those who are part of the
walking Victory family. You know how we walk. We walk
in victory. Hirst Faral is a part of the family.
(45:09):
Enjoy the rest of the day the
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