98% of Personal Branding Experts are Wrong!

People feel the need to put on a certain persona to be accepted, to be liked, to be respected, and admired. And I'm just sick of it. How can you go around telling people who you are and you've got a strong personal brand when you don't know who you are? I think they know nothing about personal branding, cuz who the hell are you? You some kind of compliment ho? You turning tricks on the street to get a compliment? That's what you become. F you. I just want you to praise me. Wrong, wrong already.

My grandmother is a deeply religious Catholic woman. She's the kind of woman who would call you on a Sunday night and say, "I didn't see you at church." So I grew up in the Catholic church. I went to Bible school. So Father, forgive me for what I'm about to do. I'm going to talk about the church—not the church that you're thinking of—the Church of personal branding, and how the vast majority of folks usher and pray to a false god. And there's an idol here, and and to talk about personal branding and ways of how to increase sales and marketing and funnels and leveraging position and manipul—it's just the the new-it term that people apply to an old package. And I'm here as the blasphemer, the one who was excised from the church, to tell you everything that you were taught about personal branding is wrong and untrue. You can think of me as the anti-Christ. All right, I'm excited in this conversation, and I just want to jump right in.

And I'm going to quote you word for word, cuz I prepped for this interview with talks of you saying this on the record. And I know sometimes on phone calls you'll be like, "Wait, I said that?" You have been saying that the the the thesis of personal branding is self-discovering. And I quote you, "Personal branding for me is a process of discovering who you are and getting in touch with that and healing from trauma that we don't even understand we have." Str huh? I said that. Hold on. Yeah, you said that. That's what I'm saying. You said that. You better show me that where we got that from. Set your sour. Okay, it sounds pretty good. Go on.

So for you, it's clearly not a strategy just to get more clients, expand your marketing, but a deeper process of self-discovery. I want to know from you your personal experience: How did you come to this realization, you personally, Kristof? I don't think we should pursue personal branding if you believe in the thesis to get clients at all. This is the wrong thing to do. And it kind of ties closely to my perspective on why we post content on social media. Almost everybody that I know posts content on social media as a thinly disguised advertisement for their business, for their services and products. And it it just kind of makes us all cringe, like, "Why are you posting that?" And and even if you lead with 80% value and at that last little 20% you kind of ask me for something, you kind of burn all the goodwill. So I'm really a big believer or proponent for this generosity kind of marketing where you just give lots and lots of value. And when you're ready to ask, just ask. You don't have to worry about hiding in something. We don't have to use this Trojan Horse concept.

Okay, now getting back to my whole belief about self-discovering, why this is such an important thing for all of us to do, and and where I began with this—I don't know if you know this, Mo—but I've worked with a business coach, a professional development person named Kier McLaren for over 13 years. I learned a lot about business, but the things that I usually don't talk about are what he taught me about how to be a man, how to be a father, and how to be a husband and a good boss and a good communicator. And I'm the I guess the result—I've reaped the rewards of his many years of teaching. And on top of that, a couple of years into our business coaching relationship, I asked him for a family therapist. I was going through some some challenges with raising my two young boys. They were kind of acting up, and I had these dark thoughts in my mind, like, "I'm not a good father. I'm not cut up for this. What did I do? What did I where did we go wrong?"

And I was raised in a traditional Asian family that when you stepped out of line, you're going to get whacked. You're going to get whacked on the side of your head with a newspaper, with a coat hanger. Now I just want to clear the record here: My dad and mom have never hit me. They've never laid hands on me, but I've witnessed some violence in the extended family. I'm like, "They're all cut from the same cloth." I saw some of my uncles beat their kids. I was like, "Wow, this is rough." And I definitely had a healthy and real fear that this was going to happen to me. When we think about that, I was having violent thoughts with my own children, thinking, "You know what, you want to step out of line…" I'm trying everything to be a better father, and I didn't like where that was going. I could see the path forward where I was building tension inside of myself that I think was going to spill over to my relationship with my wife, and I wanted to seek help right away. So I went to see a family therapist on the recommendation of my business coach, Kier McLaren, and her name was Joan Lightfoot. And I I think we met all of 10 times, but what she taught me in terms of how to be a better father and just understand complex social dynamics, I think was a master class, probably worth two years of personal development or maybe a master's degree in Psychology. Because not only was I getting help with very clear tactical direction on what I needed to do, the way to phrase it and how to do that, I got to see a master at work—a person who's a master at their craft working on me. So I was a observing our conversation. I was in it, but I was also observing her talking to me and my reaction or response to what she was saying. And a lot of the things I use in sales and negotiations and how I look at myself and think about the world come from those sessions. So those are two parts.

And the third part is: After high school, I got into ArtCenter, but I had to delay it by one semester because when I got accepted, there was only a week to prepare. And so I spent that semester taking a philosophy class. It was just an intro to philosophy, Philosophy 101 at De Anza College, was taught by a brilliant professor. He wrote the book that we read, and he just helped me to understand and think about things in ways I didn't have tools or or language to describe.

So for you though, yeah, when what do you feel like in that journey, in that period of, you know, you went to the family therapist beforehand, in college there was philosophy—is there a specific catalytic point for you that was like, as it pertains to personal branding, you're like, "Oh, this is it"? I'm at ArtCenter. It is 2014. I'm sitting in, I believe, the LA Times Auditorium, which is the smaller of the two venues, and somebody sitting in front of me, a student, and at that time I was like already teaching, they turned around like, "Oh, you're one of the professors here." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, yeah." And they were they were talking about some designer, and his name was Aaron something. I'm like, and they're like, "Do you know who he is?" I said, "No," and she was flabbergast, and she's like, "Come on, stop fronting. Everybody knows who Aaron is." And I think later on I went home and did a Google search on it. His name is Aaron Draplin, is who she was talking about. He had just burst on the scene. I think it was this year that he did a TED Talk in Portland. Everybody got to know who Aaron Draplin is, and he's a like a phenom, he's a force of nature, a man who's super creative, but a person who's really good at building his personal brand. And so being the curious person I am, I started looking him up, started to to read and kind of study like his history, his work history. I would watch his TED Talk over and over again, and I started to see patterns. He was doing something radically different that a lot of people don't do. He steps on stage and he goes, "My name is Aaron James Draplin. I think at that time he's like, 'I'm 42 years old,' I don't remember how old he was. 'I'm doing everything I can do to make it in the little leagues and graphic design.'" And in that opening moment, you learn everything you need to learn about the guy. He talks about where he's from, from the Midwest, from Detroit, and he talks about his family and terry cloth shirts and his negative vertical leap and his love for snowboarding and and and graphic design and his family and his pet dog, Gary, the Chihuahua. He just he talks about himself and integrates his whole life, his whole being into the work that he does, and it was so refreshing because designers are very kind of very snoody, they're very proper, especially the ones that speak on stages. And he goes, "I've never had a won an award. Look it up. Never tried. No professional accolades. Google that [__] good luck. I've never won an award. I've never tried for an award." Door stops. There's exactly one employee: it's me, and I don't get I don't have to wear pants at work. And people laughed, and I was like, "This is really good." Now I know what we're thinking. We're imagining this very big man, he's a big guy wearing his underwear working right, and we're like, "That's pretty cool," but what he was talking about—he wears shorts all the time. He doesn't wear pants; he wears shorts. But the it's kind of a this misleading statement, but that's really fun, this kind of clever hook that he's been able to develop. And he had a beautiful way of phrasing ideas and integrating his family stories into the work that he did and how he spoke, and he was just bomb-faring. It was kind of a carpet-bomb style presentation, a couple hundred slides and just going through and telling little stories and jokes and and funny quips, and it just really worked, and the design community loved him for it. So he's embracing all this kind of Midwestern come-up, like salt-of-the-earth kind of personality.

Why was that impactful to you though, when you heard it, experienced it? It wasn't at first. No, not at all, because I didn't know who the guy was. I might have heard his name here and there, but you know, I think all designers go through an arc in their life. At first, we can't escape all of our heroes when we're studying. We're looking at all the Masters, the ones who get all the accolades in the award books. I knew them all by name. I knew the work they did, what year, what award they won, how many different annuals, and you get heavily influenced by that. That's totally fine, and my work started to look like their work. But as I got out of school, I started doing my own work. I started to look less and less at other people's work because I was more interested in finding my own voice. So at this point, 1995 to 2014, we're talking about I'm like 19 years in my business, right? I'm not looking at the work the way I used to. I remember all the the Legends and the icons in in cinematography, photography, illustration, and design, but now it's like this is that new crop. I'm not really following them. And all of a sudden I'm made aware of this, and what really impacted me was how this young student talked about him. And this is like a scene from *When Harry Met Sally*. "I'll have what she's having." Yes, yes, yes. "I'll have what she's having." Right, right, right, right. It's like, "I want to do what he's doing," so that people are talking in the theater saying, "You don't know Chris? You should be ashamed of yourself. Stop fronting. Everybody knows him." And I was looking into the socials. I was looking every little thing I could find out about this guy, and I started to learn some things. And I think it was six or seven years ago that I did a presentation to our FuturePro community about two people in the design community that have equally really strong personal brands but could not be more different. I was doing a comparison between Aaron Draplin and Stefan Sagmeister. One is Austrian, very proper designer, once work exhibited museums, has written many books, is super smart, a brilliant conceptual thinker and designer, and has his whole perspective on design. And we would say like he's part of that elite design class. And then you have Draplin, not wearing pants, washed the 501 jean jacket with his truck ucker cap coming on stage, kind of unshaven with his beard, it's like this big man, the five of Wands, you know, and he talks in this way that is kind of like a folk hero. So I I'll share the contrast between the two cuz I remembered from the presentation he had this image. He goes, "This is my attack dog, Gary," and he shows this Chihuahua and he's like, "You know what, I love this dog," but he doesn't say "I love this dog." He's like, "I guess what's good for his mouth is good for my mouth," and they were both eating ice cream, the same ice cream, Mo. Then there were Stefan Sagmeister, who while traveling throughout Asia was terrorized by stray dogs. He was being attacked by dogs, so he decided to make a piece out of this during one of his sabbaticals, and he said, "So many dogs, so few recipes," right? So you were talking about two very different perspectives, and he was saying, "You know what, I hate you, you stray dogs," because they terrorized him. And I can imagine like context matters here, okay, everybody. And so he decided to make a funny t-shirt like, "So many dogs, so few recipes," cuz he's going to get his revenge, and everybody laughed, right? He's the guy who travels and thinks about the world and how it impacts him. He allows it to influence his design thinking. Here's another contrast: Stefan Sagmeister has been all over the world. He's an international citizen, a citizen of the world. Aaron Draplin, in his one of his slides, he goes, "My friends are saving to go to India. It sounds incredible, but I go to Indiana," right? So you couldn't be more different. One's very worldly, one probably hasn't left the United States. One wants to travel from, you know, Podunk town to Podunk town, giving small talks in an orange van, driving himself everywhere, selling merch, doing junking, you know, deep diving that kind of stuff into archival things, very much in love with Americana, agrarian culture. The other one is like exhibiting museums, judging award shows, has won all the awards. One probably claims, "I've never won an award, never tried," haven't written a book yet. That's what he said during that talk, dropping F-bombs. And then you have this very poised speaker talking about deep ideas and observations about art history and philosophy, but they had both powerful personal brands. We knew who they were. We knew what they stood for. We knew what they stood against, and it was very clear to me they're probably not sharing the same fan base, but they're both powerful people. And at that time they were the monsters on social media, on Instagram, probably 100,000 plus, and there I am with my measly 15,000 followers, thinking, "How does one attain that kind of height of stardom, of a fandom?"

So for you, it was really finding out the hip student that you were teaching. And you accomplished a lot already in your career at that point. Yeah, like you're teaching, you're you're literally like the agency is running. Awards have been won. Why was the spark of a young person being so interested in a designer so impactful to you? And I'm not I don't want to put words in your mouth, but was it—I know it's not an ego thing for you—but like, why were you so fascinated by the fact that this student was like, "Oh my God, Aaron Draplin is…" Did you want that reverence? Is that did you want that same thing? Or was it a self-study to get better at design and branding? I'm curious. I'm going to keep picking at that.

You keep picking in as much as you want. I'm a person who's really driven by my curiosity. I've done well in life by following my curiosity wherever it leads. I go to the nth degree, and I tell people, "They're surface swimmers. I'm a dolphin. I'm a deep diver. I'm going to go to the bottom of the ocean and like what's down there? What what do I need to know about this thing?" And so it was nothing more than curiosity because here's a name I've not heard before, and the impact that kind of I don't know if it's reverence that she was like indignant that I didn't even know who he was, like she was on this team that everybody should be a part of. I'm like, "This is fascinating phenomenon of like modern culture." Now I grew up in the time of Mark Chase, Kyle Cooper, Saul Bass, David Carson. It would fill an auditorium, but their reach was limited because of social media hadn't been invented at that time, right? So it was a thing like, "Oh my gosh, this person's here on campus, and it's standing room only, and it's like this hush reverence," and I was like, "Okay, that's cool. You got to do good work. You pay your dues. You climb this this silly little social ladder, and you're going to get there." I knew that game was not for me because I was really interested in talking to people. I'm super shy and socially awkward, and I had done good work. We had W Awards. I mean, I judge shows. I'm in books. I'm published internationally, interviewed by folks, but that was for the work, not for me. It was almost always for the work, right? "Oh, Chris Do and Blind team does X, Y, and Z for XY client, achieve certain results. Cool." It was always result and work-driven. And you'll start to understand how this starts to inform my perspective. And for context, everybody at this time, and you you might see some of the statues behind me, I've won the Emmy already. In fact, our agency has won two Emmys, a bunch of Cleos, Addys, BDAs, Telly Awards, just so so many awards. The awards were like, "What what's the point now? We can just apply, and we'll just get an award because our work was really good." And then I got invited to judge shows. Now, so I'm not just the guy who submits the work. I'm the person on the other side deciding. And so this whole person and the way that they looked at this design celebrity fascinated me. I'm like, "What did one person do so that they have this kind of impact on her?" It's mostly curiosity. I'm not looking for anyone to to revere me. I don't want to be put on that kind of status. And in fact, a couple of years into my journey of making content, people started to introduce me as a design celebrity, and it made me feel really uncomfortable. I'm like, "I am not a design celebrity. I don't even know that such a thing exists." I saw a big gap, like a chasm or a km, like so far apart, like the Grand Canyon between who I thought was a design celebrity—people who have storied careers who've been doing this for 10, 20, 30 years who who do the work that we all wish we had done, who came with ideas that we wish we came up with—and I I save a few of those people. And when you get to meet them, you're like, "Okay, I'm standing at the foot of a master," but those people were terrible usually at public speaking. They're not good teachers. They they had a PR machine behind them, probably. They submitted for a lot of awards, but we really didn't know anything about them. And now this is a whole new generation, a whole new crop of people, and it starts me to to go down this path where I believe now everyone can manufacture their own fame. It's brilliant that an artist said this—that Andy Warhol said, "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." The question is, "When is your 15 minutes? And actually, how long do you want to live in that 15 minutes of fame?" This is pre-social media, of course. And now you, my and me and everyone else who's listening or watching this can manufacture your own fame. And the reason why I say that is because it used to be PR people, agents, producers, talent people, the people at the networks, at broadcast networks, on radio networks, that decided if you are deserving of being featured and spotlighted. And for them, they had limited shelf space for for for content because the magazine only has so many pages. TV time only has so much space. There were way more people who wanted to be featured in magazines and on newspapers and TV and radio than what they can have shelf space for. And it's not even I don't even know about the agenda, but it's just we understand the math: If 10,000 people want to get in where you have three slots, there's a pecking order here. And now it gets into the social game, and we know this too. If you ever watch a news program, they almost always call the same few expert commentators because once you get somebody who's good, who's good on camera, who's available, who has an opinion, who's articulate, why would you find three more people like that? Only if number one isn't available, then you go to number two. And so there are natural gatekeepers and reasons why you and I didn't have a shot before. But now, because there is this direct-to-audience factor that exists on social media, we can talk about whatever we want. And if what we talk about moves people, like moves people here, moves people in their heart and in their mind, then they're going to follow us, and we have direct access to them. And then the media companies pick them up. That's the crazy part. You follow these people, and then you're like, "Whoa, this person's on Fox News. I I was introduced to him on freaking TikTok or Instagram." It's like, "Well, because you're going to bring your viewership to the media now too." It's almost like you're the one who's in power.

You said you would always do it for the work, not for me, and that you literally said that, and I find that interesting that when the student brought up Aaron Draplin's name, that's what provoked your curiosity. This person wasn't just bringing up Aaron Draplin because of his work. This person was bringing Aaron Draplin up because Aaron Draplin made them feel something. Because the way I understood—I'm not putting words in your mouth—he was vulnerable enough to bear himself. What is the challenge that people have for breaking those barriers, showing up, and owning the fact that they're only we 501s, owning the fact that they're not that they're not published? Cuz I feel like everyone wants to put on the front. What are the barriers? And then what specific steps does someone need to take to embrace that? Are you asking me like why people are so afraid of revealing themselves? When you and I talk, and I and I'll digress here, the answer is the simple answer is yes, but the people that you're now mentioning and just the way—as someone who creates content for clients constantly, the way I see social moving is people gravitate to the soul of the creator. I firmly believe that that is my thesis. I could give you the best viral content, and if it just falls flat and it feels like it's a talking head, it's not going to work. I actually disagree with you. You say most of us fall in love with people on social because of the soul of the creator. I think that's actually very rare that people bear their soul and we're seeing it and we connect and resonate with that. Think about all—let's just talk about guys for a second. Guys are attracted to success, the trappings and the symbolisms and the signals of success. So if you you are a guy and you're hanging out with hot women or you drive a fancy car or you're flying in a jet or helicopter, living in exotic locations—that is so less to me, that is just like I'm I don't know who the hell I am, so I'm going to surround myself with all—let's just call them props—so that you can see in these props that I'm successful, in somebody worth following. And furthermore, what we do is we leverage social proof.

So we know that there are a lot of folks who don't have any authority or credibility, and they pay to go to events so they can take pictures and be next to famous people. They leverage those images in a very hollow way onto social. It's like, "Oh, I just met my hero."

And so we think, well, what did this person do such that they're next to somebody that I really look up to? Like someone who has genuine authority and thought leadership. And so they keep doing this. So we package things up; there's a whole industry that's set up that is designed for you to pay so that you can have a photo next to someone famous. Somebody who is famous, who's accomplished a lot, understands the value of their personal brand and their image and likeness, such that they'll say, "If you pay me 200 grand, I'll show up to your event; I'll take pictures with whoever you want." Then that person sells each one of their tickets at 10 grand and then takes on some risk, but then this is what they do: they're in a nice location, you take a photograph, and that's what they're trading on—nothing to do with the soul there.

And if we say, like, if we zoom out, how many people that are famous do you really know their soul? Let's take another person for example: the biggest creator on YouTube is none other than Jimmy, MrBeast. We know a person's personality; we know their persona, but I don't know who Jimmy is because he doesn't ever talk about it. And now it's come to light there's some sketchy things going on with him, allegedly, and I don't really know all that stuff. But all of a sudden people are like a little bit shocked. Like, I'm not shocked; I don't know anything about him. He makes entertaining videos, mostly for younger audiences to watch, that are very like endorphin-hooking. He understands all the hooks, how to how to set up the thumbnail and to do mini cliffhangers and to build a crescendo and have outrageous big responses to things, and he keeps doing that; he's very successful at that. I'm not talking about that; I'm talking about the soul, the creator.

And if you go down the list of people that you follow, tell me how many people you think of that list that you're attracted to their soul? I think we say that, but we really don't mean that. That's my counterargument. What do you think? No, that's a good counterargument for me, outside of taking it literally, the soul of the creator. I feel like there needs to be a position—not I feel like, I—I believe that creators that work the best, particularly on social, whether it's a facade that they're portraying or whether it's their truth, have a level of conviction around what it is that they're doing. For example, there is this um, creator who would always talk about relationship advice, and he was very, very, very popular in his community. The people that loved him, primarily the people that loved him, were women because the way he was talking was very empathetic, very vulnerable, in touch with his feelings, and and he would kind of champion women in relationships. This guy, I don't remember the guy's name, but like this guy—C—it comes out like three, four years into his journey that he cheated on his lady. I know who you're talking about; you know what I'm talking about. And he got fing blasted, and then the tables turned. But when he was doing it, it was very believable. Now one might argue that he's a con artist. Even after he cheated on his significant other, he continued to make the same content; he still has an audience; they still comment. It's very interesting to me. Nonetheless, my argument is there has to be—whether it's your actual soul—whe—there has to be something behind what you're saying. You cannot just be the person reading something; you have to, to a to a degree, believe—whether in the facade you're building or in the truth that you're conveying.

Here's your headline for the title: I think 98% of creators that you see on the internet are all fake. They're all fake; they're all building a lie; they've lied to themselves; they've lied to you, and you're bought into it. You're getting so old. No, I follow some people that I feel are very genuine, and sometimes I'm like, uh, are you just feeding me a line so I can buy your product? 'Cause there's a CTA in this video: "Hey Chris, here, if you're enjoying this video and you're like, who the hell is this Asian guy, it means 'cause you're not subscribed yet. You've been watching, but it's harmless; it's free and would mean everything to me; that would motivate me to make even more content just like this, just for people like you. Go ahead, do it right now; pause the video; hit subscribe; back to the show." Well, every time there's a CTA, you have to ask yourself, is this real? Yeah, you have to ask yourself—I'm not saying 98% of people are fake, but 98% of the people online are completely fake. And I'll tell you what's happening: when we're building our companies, we like to edit for sensationalism or for convenience of knowing who they are. There are certain health and fitness gurus who purportedly sold their companies for a certain dollar amount, but they didn't actually sell their company for that amount; they sold it for a portion of that amount, therefore valuating it at a certain price, and then they just claim that's what I sold it for. And if you actually read their own story, told by themselves at the end of the book, you'll see that they didn't actually sell it for that amount. But who really cares because that number sounds really sexy. And you know what? I always think every creator that's out there is one or two bad PR pieces away from going to jail for lying, for fraud, or being sued in court. It's because people feel the need to put on a certain persona to be accepted, to be liked, to be respect—respected and admired, and I'm just sick of it. With some apologies in advance 'cause I'm firing some shots, and there's more in the chamber here, and I'll just tell you right now: I see lots of people either posting content on social or speaking on stages, writing books on this thing about personal branding. I think they know nothing about personal branding. Personal branding has become a cultural zeitgeist, guys; it's become like a word lightning rod that if you use, all of a sudden everything you say has more gravity; toss—CU—it's very attractive to everybody. Few of us can build a brand; all of us have a personal brand. So they're using this new label to put lipstick on a pig. They're teaching you about how to do marketing funnels, sales strategies, on how to position things in a marketing sense, and I say it's all hogwash, 'cause who the hell are you? You're just packaging things up. Call it packaging; I'm okay with that. In the Church of Personal Branding, I am the blasphemer; I am the Antichrist because I don't believe in any of this stuff. Because how can you go around telling people who you are and you've got a strong personal brand when you don't know who you are and you don't know what makes you you? That you still have unresolved childhood trauma that you're reacting and responding to things in a way to to mask your insecurities and and the hurt that you felt. And I I feel bad for you. So I almost look at it like this: you know, bullies are not very confident people. They always say bullies are very confident; they're not at all; they're insecure, broken human beings. And the way they heal themselves is to put other people down. So anytime you're around people who unnecessarily put other people down and cast judgment on them, they are one really broken person. Most people get pissed off when they see a bully like that; I just feel really bad for them because somebody important to them, somebody that they care about and look up to, needs to just give them a freaking hug and say, "You know what? You're okay. Okay, I accept you; you don't have to be anymore to be loved by me, and you are worthy of being loved, and I love you." And if they did that, there'd probably be less violence in the world; there'd be fewer wars. And people don't go around trying to medicate or self-medicate by having more props, more jets, more bank accounts, whatever it is they're trying to do, because that is a bottomless pit; you'll never find the bottom of that.

Are you saying the majority of personal brands right now are bullies? No, there's a difference there. I'm just saying people who put down other people are bullies. Now it is one thing to attack you for your thoughts and more importantly for your actions, but just to look at somebody and put them down, not knowing their context—you know, Neil shared a clip with me of a public speaker who who just went off on the audience because somebody in the audience was on their laptop, and he just like made the whole space super uncomfortable. And and I said to Neil, some people take notes on their laptop; how does he know he's distracted, surfing the internet or sending out emails? What if this person is the most beautiful notetaker because what the person is saying on stage is so important? But he just blasted him. That, to me, as a person who has some insecurity, saying, "I'm the most important thing in the world right now, and the fact that you're not listening to me the way I want you to listen to me, making eye contact with me, then you are nothing, and I'm going to destroy you"—that's a bully to me. So connect the two ideas for me: when you talk about we don't really know the people online, people are all using props, and then you segue it into bullying. They're not the same idea.

No, they're not. I'm just saying let's recognize individual behavior and understand what's really going on. The fact of the matter is that most of the people that have a large social following are still broken themselves, don't know who they are, haven't done the deep inner work. I'm not saying, oh, that's why I say 98%; there's a 2% there that I'm like, "You're real, real, and I like you, and I like to hang out with you and talk to you," but they're not flashy and they don't have a large social following, you know, because they don't do all the things that you need to do in this kind of short attention span culture that's driven by that algorithm; they just don't care. You know, the Dalai Lama created content, and Sadhguru created content; they don't care if they have millions of followers; they're probably not even doing the work themselves; they just don't care; they they just are who they are. And that's the thing; it's like the thing that I want people to understand about personal branding is when you show up as you, in all your glory, the things that you're proud to tell people about your accomplishments and the the hard work or the perseverance you've had, the things you've had to overcome as a human being, and you talk about things you want no one to hear about, the things that you would be embarrassed that people talked about, then now, for the first time, I think you're starting to show up as a real person. And in order to do so, you you have to be willing to alienate people because when you reveal yourself, people don't like it; they just don't like it.

I think for many people listening—not me, 'cause I do drink this Kool-Aid—I've had my own challenges and actually doing it successfully, having going through things myself right now, especially I want to kind of take the position because I've seen posts about this, especially in the female marketing community as well, on threads and on Instagram, and I'm not singling out the female marketing community or the lady entrepreneurs, but men don't really do this online, so that's where I see it. There was a creator in the digital marketing space; I can't remember her name unfortunately, but I'll give you the gist of the post, and she was saying the opposite of what you're saying: actually, do not show up vulnerable anymore. I've been showing up vulnerable, and it's been weaponized against me, and it's actually triggered me, and it's actually brought up old things for me, and it hadn't really moved the needle forward from a business standpoint. So when I hear that, I'd love to hear your take because I think to these people—and you know I'm also in many entrepreneurial circles with the rah, you know, machismo men that are like personal branding, money, marketing, all that kind of stuff—yeah, yeah. So it's like I think you're really idealistic a little bit in those worlds; those people would say you're idealistic. Are you going to make money? It's not about making money; I already—I tried to say that, and I'll say it again. So you know this person you're talking about—I know—I don't know who they are; I don't know any of their content, but I'm I'm going to make some broad statements here, so you're going to have to map it against what you've heard to say, "No, I I misspoke, or you misunderstood, Chris." Okay, so what this person did was show up and present their vulnerability as a means to get more of an audience. Wrong, wrong, already, okay? 'Cause that's like you or me saying, "Poor me; I've struggled so much in my life; don't you feel so bad for me?" That is like—uh, I hate to say it; I don't—there's probably a better expression; it's like pity porn; pity me, and let's all get together and share like how the world has been so unfair to us. The kind of vulnerability I'm talking about is I've accepted that I have certain shortcomings; I've healed from it, and more importantly, I've grown from it. I've understood why these things that are so ugly that most people don't like have made me who I am. Like, I grew up relatively poor as an immigrant until my parents worked their way up to the upper middle class, and I had a strange relationship with money, and I talk about this, and I talk about being bullied, about being singled out and being thrown racial slurs from people who didn't know me at all because they thought it was fun. I don't use it to, "Oh, won't you feel sorry for me? Isn't it so pitiful that I've had to go through this?" No, because I've learned to lean into the things that make me different and to embrace the entire story, not just the part that I think you want to hear. Sometimes I talk about being a good father; sometimes I talk about being a bad father, a good husband, a bad husband, and it's because all that makes me me.

Now we tie this back to Aaron Draplin. He goes on stage; he's a big guy, you know; I don't know how many pounds he is, but he's between two to 300 lbs; I think he's a big guy. He goes on stage like, "I'm Aaron James Draplin, who who tells you their middle name? Nobody tells you their middle name; it's kind of a weird thing, right? My name is Aaron James Draplin; I'm 40 years old; uh, I'm from Detroit, Michigan; I'm doing everything I can to make it in the little leagues of Portland, Oregon; I don't wear pants, and I wash the jean jacket 'cause it's a formal event." He's telling you everything you need to know about this guy. You can judge me; you can hate me. He talks about his love for Obama and Bernie Sanders, how he doesn't like Trump or Kid Rock; he likes certain bands; he hates other bands; and and you know he gets some booze and hisses here and there, but he don't care. He goes, "Oh, oh, oh, tough crowd, huh? All right, all right." He just embraces it, and that's what I learned. And you know who else I learned this from? Hasan Minhaj, who's been through a a turbulent year for some of the things he's talked about that were somewhat fabricated, right? But what I saw when he did Homecoming, his his comedy special, was a really beautiful thing: a brown man, first anchor, a a comedy night show, a talk show, was coming out and mixing English with his native language, celebrating his whole culture and just using and just going back and forth. And I think he like grew up in—is it Bakersfield or something or Davis? He was making jokes about Davis, you know, in Northern California. I was like, "It's freaking funny." He embraced all of it, his identity, and I just thought that was really beautiful, man. Now I can see the thesis, which is you can do this at a national, international level, and I think the more we lean into our ethnicity, our culture, our idiosyncratic nature, the more people will love us. You know what? And it's not even about that because we need to love us. So this person, whoever she is, who put this stuff out—like I tried that vulnerability is not a thing you try; it's either you're vulnerable or you're not. So you're using it as some kind of gimmick to grow your audience, and when you didn't get the result that you wanted, you reverted back to what you were doing before. Like, "I am who I am; all of you want to unfollow me; I will miss you, but I'm going to be okay 'cause I want to be surrounded by more people who want to show up for me being me." And there's a quote here; I think it's from Kurt Cobain: "I'd rather be hated for the person I am than to be loved for the person that I'm not."

You know what's funny? I feel like when me and you talk, it's probably involuntarily me going to the things I enjoy talking with you about. I already know their comments are going to rail me. It's like, "Mo, you always go here with Chris," but you can say that. I don't give an f because my next question about this—go ahead. I know what you're gonna say. Go ahead. I know what you're gonna say. Do it. Do you—what do you think I'm gonna say? You're going to say—you can say that because you're fine. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what I was going to say. That's not what I was—we could, but what would your response be to that? All right, I I'll say it, okay? Because I've heard it before: "Chris, you can say things like this; you can say, 'I don't give an f about what people think or say,' because you're financially all right; you have the the credibility with the Ws and the work, and people pay you lots of money, so you don't care anymore." What are we supposed to do? How do we get to that place? And I'm going to use a line from Carlos Aora, 'cause Carlos Aora has the most brilliant business card and contract in the world from a design perspective. He goes, "You pay me; I do work; you make lots of changes; I'm less interested." You know, he has this whole contract, and it's it's very attitudinal. And when I ask Carlos Aora about it, he goes, "I am Carlos Aora because I've had that—I didn't write the letter because I'm Carlos Aora; I am Carlos Aora because of that letter." So here's the thing: let me take it back to this point, and I've shared the story before; I'm going to share one more time. My very dear friend, Patrudda Taas, who teaches at Art Center, is a very poised, articulate woman, and she's been in the educational system, a professional designer for many, many years, right? We've become friends; I didn't have the benefit of having her as an instructor, but I remember in the Clubhouse days, probably right at the end, you know, I'm on a call and I'm doing my thing and I rile the room up just like how I'm riling us up right now, right? When you say something I don't believe, I'm like, "Nope, I don't I don't agree; I'm going to disagree with you right now because I like critical conversations because you might come back and say, 'Well, Chris, here's the counter to your counter,' and I'm like, 'Oh, I didn't think of it that way before; my worldview has shifted a little bit; thank you.' But more often than not, I usually destroy people, and that's fine; I don't I don't mean to destroy people, but they don't really think about the things they think about, and I do. So I say whatever I'm going to say, and I do it. And then, as always, we do a little postmortem, and Patrudda calls me up; she goes, 'Chris, what do you think?' I'm like, 'Oh, was good.' She goes, 'I think it was pretty good too,' and I could tell the hesitancy in her voice, and then and she goes, 'You know, Chris, I think people misunderstand you.' I'm like, 'Oh, yeah, because you can come across—it's a little abrasive and and opinionated, and I think more people would love you if you just learn how to edit that part.' I said, 'Patrula, they did not misunderstand me; I am abrasive; I am opinionated; I'm not trying to shock people, but sometimes the things I'm saying is shocking.' I said, 'I am exactly who I am; they got me just right; there's nothing to miscommunicate.' And she goes, 'But more people would like you.' I'm like, 'More people like me because I am this.' So in her world, inside of academia and corporate culture, in professional and within schools, you do a certain thing so that you have acceptance and you have respect, and then you can influence certain decision-makers, and that's the game that's played. And you know what? I think she's a very kind, thoughtful, intentional communicator. I didn't describe myself the same way you might, but that's okay. I'm just very direct; if I think something, I'm going to say it. I try not to hurt people, but I do say things that sometimes can hurt people because I could have chosen a more genial way of saying it, but I just choose not to because I want to go for impact, not for feelings. You know, I don't want to mind my manners so that you feel okay; I just want to make sure you understand what I'm saying. And I like to tell stories in very vivid and sometimes violent ways, and I'm okay with that, right? So there's another example there of me saying, you know what? People like me or dislike me for who I am, and I'm totally okay with that. So naturally, somebody's going to watch this—if this video goes viral, it reaches an an audience outside of our core audience—our core audience shows up, and you know this 'cause you read the comments too—shows up for this person that is speaking to you right now, who's passionate, who's fiery, who some people might think is soulful or intelligent, and there's some people are going to watch this video and say, "What a pompous a-hole; he's completely in his own world; what a nut job; I'm out." I'm like, "Cool, see you, bro." The video that keeps giving—are one viral video—I got people from like high school teaching like, "Bro, what happened there?" I'm like, "How—I—" you know, we—one of many conversations—you should see how we talk to each other in private. You know? Yeah. So that's that's how I would respond to that.

I have the privilege of experiencing you um, on a personal, friend level as well, like phone calls and whatnot. So and I think a lot of people when they experience you on, for lack of a better term, social or television, they think that you're putting on a show, and I'm not here to defend Chris; he doesn't need defending; I just want to give you guys some insight: he does not put on a show; he is 100% the exact same way on the phone. And I think Chris—and I'd love your input on this—what is challenging for people is that from their paradigm—and I'm I continue to even let this go—people are overly polite. So when they hear you be direct, AKA honest, they read it as you're being impolite. For example, you and I were having a phone call a few months back uh, without disclosing all of what's going on with me personally, like I just shared with you what's going on with me personally, and the way in which you took all my emotional, confused, jargony, fluffy language and literally said it in three lines—if you remember, I was like, "Dude, can you text me what you just said? If I didn't know you, I'd be like, 'Wow, that was really inconsiderate, the way you just kind of without any fluff summarized my situation,' but knowing you, I'm like, 'He just removed all of the BS around it; gave me the most powerful point so it can resonate with me.'" And that was a very impactful conversation for me. I know you find yourself in those moments a lot. What do you tell those people who hear that and they're like, "Oh, I would never do that, or I I couldn't speak that way, like because it sounds like—"

They have to combat that, to get to the other side, to be like a you or an Aaron drain and have success and attract the right people. I'm not saying what I'm doing is right for everybody; it works for me. If you want what I have, if you like to achieve the things I've achieved and want to build the audience I've been able to build, and you like the sauce, well, this is the sauce. But not everybody likes the sauce; they don't like the heat. They want something more mild and creamy, maybe with more dairy in it and butter. I'm like, I don't do that. But I'm telling you, some version of this you can apply to your life.

And I have to say, like, you know, from the minute you were born, you began to die, because we all have finite life. And I, I just want to accept this idea that you, you have this one shot, this one shot. So at what point, if you have 100% life and every day you're ticking away at it, you're creeping towards the end, end unless we get to the singularity event, and you're taking towards the end, like at what point do you want to show up as you fully realize as who you are? When we look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Abraham Maslow, the top of is self-actualization, your full potential. But if you're staying at the bottom of like physical, physiological needs and emotional needs and community and artistic expression and things of that nature, well, who the heck are you?

One of my favorite films is *The Sixth Sense*. Right, Haley Joel Osment looks in the camera, looks right at Bruce Willis, looks right at us, looks into her soul, and he says, "I see dead people." So I'm looking around the world, I'm like, I just see fake people. I see children who are trapped in adult bodies who've never had the kind of emotional healing that they need. I'd love to help you; I'd love to show you the way, but I'm not for everyone; I don't want to be, and I don't. So let's, let's look at it. So somebody's watching us and say, "Hey, this seems really interesting; this is tickling my brain; it's setting my soul on fire." And he's right. All these people talking about branding and personal branding, they're all wrong, and the church is telling you the wrong thing, the Church of personal branding. And here I am. I'm not trying to put myself in a messiah complex; I'm just saying I'm the anti-church, and because the church seems to be all about getting you more clients, positioning yourself so you can charge more, so it's not for everybody.

But why do we go to therapy? Why do we meditate? Why do we seek spiritual guidance? It's so that we can feel at home and at peace with ourselves, in our own skin. And I think it's a beautiful thing, and it's like a weird expression that people say, "they're comfortable in their own skin," and so many people want to crawl out of their skin; they want to peel off that layer of flesh and say, "It is so gross; I'm so disgusted by myself; I can't stand it." And if somebody were to ever discover who I really am, see all the ugliness and darkness of me, no one will want to be around me. I got news for you: first of all, a, you're not that good at hiding it, 'cause I can already see it. And despite seeing it, this is the part that's loving, I accept you, and you don't need to change. But I'm irritated that you keep trying to pretend; that's the part that drives me away. It's not the ugliness that drives me away, because I think we're all ugly in a way, and who the hell am I to say like my ugliness is better than your ugliness. But what, what really kills me is them pretending that no one can see it and trying to fool me.

Okay, I, I hope you're enjoying the conversation. I'm gonna take two seconds of your time. Please stop right now, make a comment; anything that you want to put into the comment will help. Think about like where you want to go, where you live, anything that you want to say, just put it in the comments, and then continue with the video, 'cause that's going to help us reach more people. That's it, back to the show. Do you underestimate the level of how people are different from you when it comes to how they would react like you say this kind of stuff? And I, and I worry about someone who does not have the level of tolerance, who is not exposed to people like yourself, who I consider a safe space, and they do this, and they get really hurt, dog. Because you're like, "I accept you," the world doesn't always accept; the world judges; cultures, like you said at the beginning, you even looking at your family, they will, these people will try to do this; we've witnessed this; we've seen them; they're in our groups, like, and they're not surrounded by the right community, and then they get hurt, and then they find themselves in a position where they're like worse off. Because I consider that you need to have a high level of emotional intelligence, a high level of tolerance for pain, to one, overcome the fear of judgment, but the consistent judgment, the consistent lack of acceptance, the ex—like, so talk a little bit about that, just for those that are like, "I want to try; I want to try," like what they might end up facing, 'cause not everybody's you; like, "I accept you," come into our Kumbaya outlets, like that's not, that's not the real world. There are pockets of people like that; that's not the real world.

All right, so here's what I'm going to say: I think you need to find somebody that your soul connects with, someone that you really believe who understands what it is that you're going through, someone that you look up at, who think you, you think are steps ahead of you on that journey of self-acceptance, of self-awareness and self-love. And I say you pour into them, and you just drown out the noise. The world conspires to tear each other apart; it's kind of like we're so unhappy with our own lives that when somebody else finds inner peace, success, or joy, we have to create a new narrative in our mind that something is wrong with them; there, there's something that's suspicious, because it allows us to continue living in this lie that we tell ourselves. But I'm to this point, I'm not saying I have some kind of like spiritual mastery; I'm not. But I have enough self-love and self-acceptance that I can see you and not say, "I got to tear you down." What I, what I'm really disturbed by is the fact that you keep pretending, but I'll work with you on this. So whoever it is, it doesn't need to be me; it doesn't need to be Mo; it could be anybody. Find somebody; it could be a sibling, a parent, a best friend, a peer, or somebody, an author you meet online; just try to like follow in their steps and do the best that you can. And then surround yourself with people who are going to accept you, or not accept you, at least you know where you stand. Because you know what really hurts is to think someone's really your friend, and in your time of need they turn their back on you; that hurts more than anything. So I have active filters that I put out, in ways that I can separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. So I know who's on Team Do and who's never been on Team Do, who's just hanging around just trying to take stuff, you know. And when they reveal themselves to me, I thank them for doing that, 'cause I don't want to waste more of my energy, generosity, and friendship on those people. I'm good with that.

So we spend entirely too much time worrying about the opinions of people who don't care about us, and the fact is we don't even care about them, because we're socialized, and we're raised in societies that tell us to look externally for comfort, for affirmation, for markers of success, when we should have been all this time working on our own intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, like what drives us. So I can't tell you how many of our friends in our direct circle and indirect circles who are so hurt, but I want to use the word hurt as some kind of self-manifested catastrophizing, because what if you just didn't read all those comments? Did your life change? Not really. So we make ourselves important, and they know that, so then they can drive the rusty dagger into the open wounds, because we're like, "I have a wound right here; would you like to stab me?" There's an African proverb that says something like this: "If there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm." So what we have to do is safeguard ourselves against the most powerful enemy, and it's ourselves. You said, "There's a wound right here, so stab me." I am now officially confused if I'm supposed to be vulnerable, if I'm supposed to showcase myself to the world for, to, to heal and blah blah blah and all this kind of stuff, or I'm supposed to talk about the wounds. The wound that we're revealing to the world is, "I care about your freaking opinion; my emotional well-being rides up and down, crests and crashes on your opinion of me; I seek your validation to affirm my, my goodness." That's the wound; we like, I painted a giant target on my head and say, "Please attack me here." And when they hit us, we're like, "Why, why does it hurt so much?" Because you told them. But to say that I've done the deep inner work, I realize there's some darkness in me and some shadow version of myself that I'm not entirely proud of, but they've informed who I am. Once you heal from that enemy within, that's not a wound; that's a shield; it's callous; the scab has turned into a scar. How can you hurt me?

You know a lot of things about me, Mo. Now, previously you said, "Hey, I know Chris from social; I've been to events; I've talked to him on the phone," but you forgot to mention you've been to my house; you slept—oh yeah, in my house. Yeah, we've gone to locations throughout the world together; we've seen each other. So if at any time I'm just showing you a different version of me, I hope that you would have seen it by now, 'cause I know you're a smart guy. So it goes way beyond just us talking on the phone, right? And I don't have time for the BS; if you say something, I'm like, "No, that's, that's BS, Mo." That's what you want in a friend, by the way. Going back to you saying the community, and that's why I, I miss the Clubhouse days, 'cause you just had to be there for the Clubhouse days, 'cause those 4 a.m. conversations were rowdy. But you want that in a friend. What I think it's hitting me right now in this moment together, the reason why myself included, it can be a challenge, it is a challenge for this philosophy of personal branding to take place, is because even amongst our circles, when they are direct with us, we're upset about it. I was that way with you in the beginning, like, "Whoa!" And with the maturity, with the relationship, I'm like, "That's the only, that's the only way I want to ride from now on from anybody," like, "No, yes, don't do this; not a good look; is that really you? What are you doing here?" All these kind of things. So if we're already resistant to the feedback from the people that we consider closest to us that have our best interest at heart, it's going to be tremendously difficult to show up authentically, vulnerably, because there's still some sort of internal, not even me, me, me turmoil, but there's like an internal battle to where you kind of like the hiding—

Let me add something to this conversation. Okay, our mutual friend, Rich Cardona, who produces our podcast for us, part of our media trifecta here, he and I were spending some time together, and we're driving in the car. He's a very emotional guy, in a very good way; he's in tune with his emotions; he writes high, and he writes low. And we were talking about this idea of giving praise versus giving criticism. I said, "We have the opposite understanding of what praise and criticism is." So here's another Antichrist statement here, okay? You should not seek praise; you should seek constructive criticism. You should be sad when people praise you; you should be joyful and delighted when people give you solid constructive criticism. Let me explain why. What happens to us when, when people say, "Oh, you did a really good job; you know, you, you did your best today; I'm really proud of you," and you start to have these feelings of accomplishment? What you're saying is, "I don't know my own inherent goodness; I did not know I did a good job; I didn't know that I could be proud of myself; I'm waiting for someone else to tell me." So once again, we've given the controls of our emotional regulation to some other person, and we're very needy of this now. So we look to a parent; we look to a friend, a peer, a mentor, a colleague, a spouse; they say, "You know what, I appreciate you for working hard today." Like, the hell you didn't know you worked hard today? You didn't know, like, you can barely keep your eyes open, but you showed up to work today, and you did what you needed to do to provide for you and your family; that you made certain personal, emotional sacrifices; you dealt with a screaming client, and you dealt it, you dealt with a situation with professionalism, with poise, with elegance and generosity. You didn't know that; you got to let somebody else tell you that. And so what happens? You start to become depressed; you start to feel less, and you're waiting for anyone, just anyone, a stranger, someone on social media to say, "Mo, I'm proud of you; you did a great job today." So when people say, "I'm proud of you," what people don't realize is they're subconsciously, unwittingly saying, "I have power over you," and me being proud of you is something that you should like.

Now, parents say this, and parents are the just about the only people that should say, "I'm proud of you," because you're the progeny; they brought you into this world; they gave you life, and they supported you for whatever your critical stages of development were, and they had certain expectations. But I still find it problematic that parents say it. Why are you proud of me right now? Because I did something that you wanted me to do. You get into law school, "I'm proud of you." You get straight A's, "I'm proud of you." What is the inverse of this, Mo? The inverse is when you don't do the things I want, and like, "I am not proud of you." That's a nasty codependent relationship, too, 'cause you don't notice it when you're young, and then you, you get older, and then you're like, "Wow, I've been doing a lot of things for reasons other than internal." Let's look at some emotions or, or some actions: pride, love, joy, generosity. Are these things like little pieces of candy that are to be doled out from time to time? Aren't you deserving of love, joy, and pride and generosity by merely existing? From a very young age, I would tell my children, especially the ones that weren't like so sure of themselves, "I'm proud of you; I love you; there's nothing that you ever could do that would ever change that; no matter what you did, even if you committed a crime, the most heinous crime, you murdered somebody, I still would love you." To not ever allow anyone else to tell you otherwise. You don't have to do anything to deserve this; you don't have to do anything to earn this; you get it just by existing.

Me and you talked about that when I was in California the last time, at your house, and you were, we were eating uh, some, some banger uh, Asian food, and I, I had it in my notes, and you said, "That's the only thing that I would tell my sons before bed," when they're in a, you're so weird sometimes, when they're in a state of like that they can receive it. And I wrote it down in my notes, and from that day, and I, I think I came to California maybe March-ish, right, end of March, so it's been six, seven months, when I'm with my kids every single night before bed, I pull out the notes; now I have it memorized, but I'll pull it out and I would say it. And now every time they're with me before bed, they'll be, if I, if I'm always planning to say it, but they'll be like, "Bubba, you forgot something." And now my son, Aline, can recite it from memory. And there was one night where he did it, and that's, that's why I'm kind of getting emotional, because that was such a powerful lesson, because I consider that my parents did a tremendous job. You know, parents are learning as they go, as well; sometimes life for them is the first time. But there was definitely moments throughout my childhood where I felt that I needed to always perform right, like I needed to do something, not in exchange for their love, but that was the pressure I put on myself. And it's, and it's really important for me now, having three kids of my own, now that lesson that you said stuck with me. And while you're saying it now, that could, that is potentially the unlock for all of this, for anyone. I know we started with personal brand; we went down the rabbit hole that Mo and Do show usually goes down, but that is the unlock. I, I am still on the boat, and I'm worried that I feel like I've been very blessed to have you in my corner, my mother, my father, friends that love me, that people that can be direct with me and say it for real, and I, and I take it; I know they have my best interest. I hope that that people are able to go down this journey and be very cautious in being okay internally first, because you're going to be hit with a whole effing lot from the outside, external world.

I'm really glad that you're applying that lesson, and you're seeing the, the kind of impact it can have on these very young, fertile minds, these gardens, and the seeds that you plant; you can put weeds in, or you can, you can grow vegetables and fruit and plant a mighty oak tree in there; we just don't know. And you could, you, you're getting choked up because when you understand that you can do this as a parent, I think the reason why you're getting choked up is you're like, "But there's a child inside of you that needed to hear it too," that we all wish that our parents were better; it's too late, but we can parent ourselves differently. And so now I want to go to the opposite side of this, which is the feedback, unlike the love, the generosity, the joy, and someone feeling proud of you; you have to earn the feedback, right? So I told you, we got it all wrong; we think we need to earn someone's approval. No, I don't want that. And let's just be real with this: when somebody's like, "I love your design," I'm like, "I appreciate that; I already like the design; it's good feedback," right? But I was thinking, what do you know about design? See, there are people out there that were seeking validation from that; their lives are a mess; that they're financially broken, and that they, they are working through their own trauma, and they, they don't have any design sensibility, and they're not good writers, and they're like, "That was a good piece of design, writing that you did," and you're like, "Oh my God, you just made my dam on Cloud 9." So the opinion and of an uninformed person matters to you, and you ride that emotional high, but you know what? It's like a drug; the more you chase it, the less effective it is; the more you need it, the more you chase, the less effective it becomes; you become so desensitized to this that you become a very needy person whose emotional state or well-being is regulated by the random comments of strangers. I just want to say this: you, some kind of compliment ho; you're turning tricks on the street to get a compliment; that's what you become.

Critical feedback back is hard to give, because it requires a level of study, intelligence, and generosity; most people give it wrong; they're like, "I like this; I don't like that," not very helpful to me. That's okay; everyone can express their opinion however they want, but in my mind there's a much higher art form to giving critical feedback. Here's what you did well; here's where you can have some room for improvement, and point out very specific things; give you concrete examples. Now, the reason why I say you have to earn the feedback is because I don't care enough about you to take out my time to put my intellectual kind of uh, ideas and creativity into solving a problem. People pay me for this stuff; people ask me all the time on the internet, "Can you look at my launch? Can you look at my logo? Can you look at my website?" I'm like, "No, I don't have time; I don't have time; you haven't earned that from me." This is why Carlos loves to say this, and I like it too; Carlos Garcia, he says, "Feedback is a gift," and if you look at this, this goes along with my thesis here. Critical feedback, well-articulated, thought-out feedback is a gift; it is not to hurt you. You're talking about it from the position of the messenger, as the receiver; it is, you are gifting somebody, especially someone if you're in a position where you can actually articulate good, in-depth feedback that moves the needle for the other person. Yes, a lot of times the people that give feedback, even when it's good, they, the rapping is a little harsh, but that's besides the point. But as the receiver, 'cause I used to be this way, and I'm still working on progress; I used to be this way. I remember when I wrote my thesis, and the reason why he was my advisor, he brought that b back bloody. When I say bloody, that's red ink on the paper, for anybody that's in academia, right? And that was the fir—and this was my undergrad thesis—that was the first time in my undergrad career, that's four years into undergrad at this point, where the paper comes back bloody. I'm pissed; I'm at the house; my, my, my wife is sitting there; I'm mad, screaming, walking around; I was like a, I was like a spoiled child reacting to this paper being bloody, and it was because, because he brought it back bloody, and I had to go through that, that we got published, and it was that paper that got me accepted into the master's program, because my, the person who interviewed me for the master's program was like, "You're published as an undergrad," but oh my God, was it [ __ ] grueling to experience that. Yeah, but it was also one of the first few times it was real critical, deep feedback. I didn't think it was a gift in that moment though, until I got through all my [ __ ] and then it was. And now even with you, sometimes in the early s, I'm like, "Man, this is tough to hear."

There's a powerful word I want to share with you; it's called reframing. Hopefully, by the time I'm done talking about a couple of these ideas, I'll have reframed it for you so that you can see it in a totally different light, that you'll stop seeking the approval and the praise of other people, and you'll move towards, "I would love to get your honest critical feedback, because that's going to help me grow the most." When someone asks for this, and I just want to give you some examples, or continue with my thought: we pay consultants thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of dollars to go in to do what? To praise us? To compliment us? To prove what we're doing? Absolutely effing not! You've wasted your money. Then they go in to say, like, "Here's all the things that we see, things that are misaligned, in ways to improve it," and they get paid millions of dollars to do this. All the big consultancies, we go in to a pitch meeting and we have a half-baked idea; are we looking for praise and compliments? We're looking how, how to build a better business. So now if we understand the professional context, if I'm being sued, which you know I'm going through some things myself, I go to an attorney so that they can fix the problem, not to praise me, not to take my side, but to make the problem go away. We pay lots of money to do this; we should look at intelligent, articulated feedback from someone who knows what they're talking about as a gift; you should have paid for it. So every time somebody asks me for my opinion, I somewhat think—

What are you going to do? Should thank me, and should you should should pay me. But what do they do instead? They're like, "What an a-hole! You're not deserving. You haven't earned my critical feedback." So what do I do? And this is what most people do.

That's nice. How interesting. Amazing work. Good job, Jimmy. Good job, Mary. So here's the ironic part: people that are in my inner circle—you know who you are—you ask me for my opinion, you tell me about your idea, and they tell you why it doesn't work. And what do you do? You reject it. You feel attacked. You feel hurt.

What do I want to do? I don't want to give you my opinion anymore. It's a waste of my time. You're not going to take it anyways. You've become—and I've put out a post on this, not my term—an "askhole." You ask for advice, you just don't take it because the advice and the feedback you got doesn't align with you wanting praise. This is a sick relationship.

Let's imagine you have to cross the English Channel, and you're a first-time boat builder, and I'm a master boat builder. You're like, "I'm ready to go. Can you can you give me an inspection on this boat?" I'm like, "Yep, looks pretty good." In my mind, this is a, "You ain't going to make it. You're going to die on the ocean." You're like, "Thanks. I have all the confidence in the world." I'm like, "Woo," and you start rolling out there. You're, "Wait a minute, the boat is taking on water, and it's very unstable. It's spinning in circles, and you're going nowhere fast," and then you drown and you die.

The other scenario is you show me your boat. I'm like, "Okay, this boat will capsize. You got to redo this, this, and part." And you're like, "Oh my God, so much work! I just want to get on the water." I said, "You know, you didn't finish the boat correctly. It's not sealed properly, and if you do this, it's going to cut through the water faster. You'll use 50% less energy." And you know what you're thinking? "F you! I just want you to praise me."

When I present that example, no one wants the first of the two options, but that's how you act. That's how you conduct yourself. So I'm telling you something right now: you can seek empty praise, or you can hear the hard things to help you grow. You can't have both.

Before we go too deep, I just want to mention something. Some of you are aware of this; most of you are not. We have membership love that allows you to support us making more content. I'll talk more about that later towards the end of the video. Just let you know for right now, go ahead and counter it.

What about the dream, Chris? The dreamers? You sound like you're [ __ ] on people's dreams. I mean, weren't you the one who was trying to build an education company, and you and you went for the advice of the Masters in Academia, and they said it's not going to work, and you were like, "Bah!" You're saying right now, some people go—aside from those that are actually just going for praise—right? Yes, I think a lot, almost everybody, going for praise—mostly, most people go for—I can already see an audience be like, "What about the people that have dreams and ambitions and great ideas, and you know, you always hear these cliché motivational posts. It's like, 'No one believes in us.'" Okay, okay. And they go to, and they go to real people. They go to real PE, and you hear it time and time again. I watched the documentary of Charles Trotter. Charles Trotter hired the guy who became a three-star Michelin Chef in the same city. Charles shone this man—the guy at the end of the documentary was like, "If it wasn't for Charles Trotter, I wouldn't be here." So I get that there's that—always like the master isn't always the best, but you learn from them, whatever. But so many people are going to hear this: it's like, "What if I believe in my idea? What if—" and you sit there as the expert and tell me it doesn't work. You have a way of perverting what I say into running into different scenarios, so I'm I'm grateful for it. So let's—we are in a completely different rabbit hole for personal branding, but I'm here for it.

Let's examine this for a second. You have a brilliant idea. You want to change the world. And radical ideas are hardly ever seen with open arms and welcomed in. Like, you you got something great, 'cause we want just more of the same, just like better. And it's true about everything than everybody. Like, we love that dish; we want it more the same, but just a little bit better. And somebody introduces you a totally different dish. Like, "I don't want that. I don't want that," because it takes time to get used to new ideas. And when you're showing these ideas, you have to be careful who you're seeking opinions from. People who can give you money—okay, I understand that. People who've been there before—I understand that. People have expertise about specific things who are really good articulating feedback—I can see that too. So you say, "I have this big idea." They criticize it. You have a decision to make: is the criticism valid? Because I already know who I am. I know what the idea is. I know who they are. I can filter out the good from the bad feedback. I'm not saying take every piece of feedback as gospel from from the heavens and the universe. You have to understand something: you have to know what you came there for. And the feedback says, "I don't think the consumer is going to buy it." Here's the challenge: how do you defend against this? And you should walk away saying, "I can defend this. That's okay. That's a valid point." So you change the one thing that's valid, and you work on it.

The most famous example of this is when the founder of Ring came to Shark Tank and pitched this idea about a door system that you can answer it with your phone. And to the regret of the Sharks—which is the biggest pitch they turned down—that worked out to be a ginormous company because Amazon bought them for like $10 billion or something like that that they regretted making that decision. The person who came in believed in their vision, was seeking money and perhaps some guidance. These guys couldn't see it, but here's the beautiful part: did they give up? No. They proceeded just as normal because they knew who they were. They weren't seeking external validation. They're looking for feedback to make it better, or they're looking for mentorship or money. They got none, so they went back and did what they needed to do. That is a different thing than what you're saying. If you don't know who you are, you don't believe in your own vision, anybody says anything—well, you got nothing. It might work; it might not, but you're not convicted in what it is that you're trying to build. So there are lots of people who tell me, "Oh, the future's stupid. Social media is dumb. Why you giving away content? I don't like the way you do this." I'm like, "Smell you later. I know what I'm doing. If you want to help, you want to get on the train, let's go." But this all does connect, 'cause here are the three themes that I'm hearing from you about really building a strong personal brand, really actually putting yourself out there. Number one: you have to be convicted in who you are. You have to be showing up with no other intention but to show up as Who You Are. And if things are presented to you in the form of criticism or whatever, don't come at it from a position of seeking praise, seeking love. Look at things from a position of, "Is this feedback applicable? I need to address—"

A really big thing that needs to make in this episode because you're listening to this and you've raised this flag a couple of times: what if I'm not ready to be vulnerable, and the world is kind of mean and cruel, which it can be at times? Don't do this without guidance. Don't do this without doing the inner work first, because you're too raw and vulnerable in a way that it's not the right kind of vulnerability that we're talking about. You're so sensitive to the feedback that you're not quite ready. Some people have social anxiety, even in writing a comment, that their hands are literally shaking as they're trying to write out the comment. That person is not ready to do this deep dive. That person hasn't done the inner work to be so raw and vulnerable. And you know what? I I'll put this out there: I think I hold a specific and unique position in the way that I carry myself because I've done that work, and it's not easy work to do. If it was easy work to do, everybody would look and sound exactly the same, and I'm kind of glad. As a child growing up as an introvert, I had to do a lot of inner work just to survive emotionally without trying to throw myself off a bridge. And then into college, took the philosophy class, and then when I started my business, I sought mentorship and coaching, and then I sought therapy, and then I read books, and I worked on myself, and I kept thinking thinking about the things I think about, and I started to see that there was a perspective here I'd like to share with people, more more for them to be balanced human beings who have that aura of self-acceptance, self-love, joy, and peace. And then anything else is possible. Business, as you know, can be very difficult. Working with clients is really difficult, but it's more difficult when it's compounded by the fact that you're all busted up, that you don't know who you are, that it's like a house that's all the windows are cracked and ready just to fall apart. So if we can build up that foundation and build up and fortify ourselves as to who we are, when clients like, "I don't like this offer," you can say, "Okay, we're probably not the right fit for you." What people often mistake as complete arrogance or ignorance—both wrong—when I do my role plays, when I say, "I never justify," because I believe that I don't need to justify myself to you. Who are you to hold a position over me to say, "Prove your worth to me?" I'm nobody, and you are too, and I will leave because we're clearly not a good fit for each other. You come from that school where you want to hold and exert power over me. I don't belong in that world, so I'll see you later, friend.

You know what the funny thing is? One of our videos where I negotiate with you to get 50% of your business: "I'd like to propose something else, please. I'll do the video for you for free if we get the results that you want. I'd like a percentage of the results. How about, since you say each customer is going to spend $100 with you, let's go half." Video, yeah, sking, yeah. They're just all on it, like, "Oh, what an a-hole! What a prick! This will never work! 50%! That's outrageous!" Right? There are two, not surprisingly, responses. I put them in two types of categories. Number one: "I'd do that deal with you, but for 35%." And if I was in business, I'd take that. It was just a negotiation, by the way. And here's the surprising part: most they DM me and said, "I'll take the 50% offer." I say to them, "It was just a roleplay, friend." They're literally people in my DM say, "I need help with my business. I'd be happy to give you 50% to solve my problems." So for all those people who think that was a dumb video that would have no real-world applications, you're wrong. Most of the people who who comment are not businesses and not business owners; they're service providers, so like, this is star, you don't know what you're talking about. But businesses understand how difficult it is to acquire customers and to grow their company. Those are real business people who reach out like, "My company's busted. I need help." I don't even remember the example, but I remember you said said, "We're going to increase your clients by this much." No, I just said, "You don't want to pay me the $1,000, so for every new client that I get you, you pay me 50% of the revenue." Right? That's right. That's right. It's pretty straightforward. And you're like, "I don't want that. What if I make too much money? Or I mean, what if I pay you too much money?" I'm like, "Stupid, that's the whole point!" God, the comments, the comments I get on that video. I'm like, complete [ __ ] in that video. Some racial things in there, here some some—it's a Middle Eastern and Asian talking to each other. There's a lot—

If you have enjoyed this video, if you have enjoyed the philosophy that Chris shares regarding how he approaches personal branding from a standpoint of, "You have to heal internally first to show up in a way that is who you are, to not be susceptible to the dangerous treacherous waters of social media and the world," let us know in the comments. If you enjoyed this, and the next part two or part three, whichever this one lands, is going to be, "How do we take everything he just said and then apply it into content?" Let us know in the comments. If you're not following already, subscribe. Hit that subscribe button. And Chris, tell them about the membership if they're not a part of the membership.

I'd love for you to talk about that. Yeah, for those of you who feel so inclined to reciprocate the generosity in that which we've shown you, because we could gate everything that we do, we can hold back on the workshops and have massive funnels and calls to action, and we could funnel you to death. We've decided not to do that for the last 10 years, produced over 1300 videos, but for the first time, we figured out a new way that we can share some of the weird content that we have: these deep dives, these hallway conversations, these full workshops, in a way that I don't have to launch a course, but I could just give it to you. And we put that behind the premium membership. You can join by going onto your desktop, going to the Futures Channel on YouTube. There are two options: you can join as a premier member, which says, "We love you. We want to see you do more of this," and it's a it's a low fee of a dollar a month. And if you want to become a patron-level supporter, that means it's going to cost you a little bit more. I believe it's $10 a month for now. You get access to these other gems that we think are super valuable, and I'm so grateful for the the 600-plus people who are already there. It grows every single day, and I hope to continue to grow it because if you guys help us to get there, I never have to launch another course. I don't have to charge for workshops. I can just teach you all for free through the support of the people who can. And the rest of you, thank you for watching.