EP 0001 - Your Brand Is Not Your Logo
Colvay, who calls himself the Inspiration Engineer, argues that personal brands aren't built on logos but on emotional moments and consistent content. He uses Kevin Hart and Ryan Reynolds as examples, then explains how to become a category leader by stacking credentials, portfolios, and media placements that make you searchable and memorable.
Chapters
Freedom! You're listening to the Daily Motivation Podcast, a place to take your life to the next level. Your business, your fitness, your dreams. Let's go! Episode 1: Your brand is not your logo. What up, what up, what up? It's your boy Colvay, Inspiration Engineer. You already Now what it is, I am pumped. Hey, we gotta ring that alarm. The Brand Builder Playlist newsletter podcast, we are public, we are live, we are excited because we are going to bring so much value when it comes to being the hub that you go to when it comes to influence. And personal brand building, or building any brand for that matter. Well, today's episode, episode 1, we have titled this episode Your Brand Is Not Your Logo: What Personal Branding Really Is and What It Is Not. When I think about a brand, the things that come to mind is the logo, the colors, the brand identity statement, and how that brand makes me feel. I think about McDonald's, I think about that clown, I see the yellow golden arches, I see the Whopper— or not the Whopper, the Whopper— the Big Mac. I see I'm loving it. The audio sound there. When I think about Sprite, I think about the font, the fizz of that liquid that's almost clear as water. Obey your thirst. I think about Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and all of the brands that we identify that are loyalty and advocacy brands known worldwide. Nike, Google. I think we would argue Tesla. What does the brand represent? What does it identify? What do we think about? What is this tagline? What comes to mind? Personal brands are no different. However, not every personal brand has a logo. But every personal brand has a look or an appearance. They have a way that make you think about them, and they have a way to have that connectedness to where we can feel loyal to them as a personal brand. Let's take Kevin Hart, for example. He's one of the most popular comedians of this era, next to Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock. What do I think about when I think about Kevin Hart? For me, it goes immediately to, all right, all right, all right, when he was doing that stand-up, that stand-up, Laughing Out My Pain. Hilarious. That's what I think about, is him being goofy, saying, don't make me laugh, right? And then positioning himself on all types of media and media partnerships and enterprise partnerships. I think about everything that he's doing from the Kodesh Ball Show to the additional content that he puts out for interviews. And to me, that's the Kevin Hart brand. When I think about The Rock, immediately I think about that wrestler doing the eyebrow. And what was the tagline? Do you smell what The Rock is cooking? Yeah. Right. Majority of us know that narrative. Okay, when I think about Tiger Woods, I think about that red shirt, right? I think about the accomplishments that he created in chasing Jack Nicklaus. When I think about Ryan Reynolds, I think about his goofiness, right? And now being the face of Mint Mobile. I think about some of the movies and the films that he's been in. My point to you is this: A personal brand gets remembered for the content that touches us in our spirit, whether it's comedy, whether it's entertainment, whether it's information or education, whether it's inspiration. There are certain things that we do, we say, we act upon that people cherish and never forget. And once you have created memorable iconic moments as a personal brand, these are going to be the things that people relate to when they think about you. How does that translate when you're not a celebrity, Calvé? When you don't have that level of influence, how do you take that message and bring it to the modern-day man or woman? You've got to start somewhere. You've got to start building a foundation somewhere. And that foundation starts with what I call being a category king or a category queen. You are first going to be remembered when people look at your resume, when they look at your portfolio, when they look at the licenses, the certifications, the platforms where you've been when people start to Google search you, this is where your foundations begin as far as being someone that is memorable. What do you have as assets in your portfolio in order to showcase who you are? Some of you, that will be a degree or a license or a certification or content or media placement. Some of you, that might be a TED Talk or an event that you spoke at, or a clip, or a sizzle reel, or something that you made that was auditory, or fill in the blank, some content that people can absorb, and they're like, whoa, that was dope, or whoa, I wish I had that. When you can experience or impact someone in an experience to make them say, oh, I wish I had that, or whoa, that's cool, We're on that path. But that's not where you start. I didn't start with a TED Talk. That wasn't where my journey began. I didn't start as a university speaker. I didn't even start as the Inspiration Engineer. I started as an artist in a very small city in the Midwest, as an artist named Artistic, with a love of making music and adding my poetry to beats. That's where I started. That was where I began in high school, being locally famous. That was where I began. Sold out concert, 1,209 people. No arrogance, no ego, but that showed me what was possible. And even still, that ain't where it began. Where it began was age 5, my father telling me, you can do anything you want to do, be anything you want to be. And when I told him at age 11 that this is what I'm going to do, he said, [FOREIGN LANGUAGE], you can't do that. Okay, now I got to prove you wrong. Parents, by the way, super supportive of the journey at this time in this stage, but this created who I am, who I've been. Okay. And there were the mark key moments that I talk about, from that gift of ferocity to helping a lady named Melissa Briscoe get her associate's degree, to helping my very first student break 6 figures in revenue, to seeing the gap in the marketplace between entertainment and education and understanding that people are going to become edutainers and start creating these unique hybrids and being one of the first to say, I'm going to play on both sides of the sandbox. This was where I started. This was where I began. Now I need to create content and become that category king. You want to know a secret? I didn't even know how to identify who or what I was. I was on a side having a challenge— too many skills that I've mastered, and now I don't know what I am. There's two sides of that, of that coin. Jack of all trades, master of none— that's the pessimistic side. Or the other side, which is, I believe, the Jim Rohn philosophy, is the one that I heard it first from, says the more skills that you have, the more valuable you are to the marketplace. But the challenge with that philosophy is Yes, the more skills you have, the more valuable you are. But if they don't all funnel under the same umbrella, the more confused the marketplace is by what you do. I was having that problem. Who am I? What do I do? I'm a poet, songwriter, rapper, event producer, promoter, social media marketer, Sales Mastery, uh, like content creator as far as like designs and graphics, audio engineer. Mm-hmm. None of those funnel under the same umbrella. I don't know what I am. And it was the motivational speaking and the things that I really found that I'm really passionate about. Today it's Awakening Dreamers. It's very clear. It's the inspiration, it's the edification. But I went to my community and I said, hey, I'm having this challenge. How do you see me? How do you understand who I am, what I am? And we took 10 titles, we narrowed it down to 5, we took 5, we narrowed it down to 2, we took 2, we narrowed it down to 1. So they chose Inspiration Engineer, and the Inspiration Engineer was born. Now, if you're not a celebrity and if you don't yet have some of the foundational pieces built around your name, built around your personal brand, your face and your image. Where do you begin? That's why you're here. We're going to be covering all facets of influence and brand building. Whether you're new to the game, whether you've been in the game for a while, maybe you are looking at fresh ideas to reinvent and shed the previous skins. Maybe you've been in tech your whole life and now you're making a transition, or maybe you come from medicine or pharmaceuticals or venture capital or fill in the blank, and you're like, how do I value stack layers to my personal brand? How do I monetize what I talk about? How do I build this thing that I want to build? I'm going to be talking a lot about empires, what I call personal brand portfolios. But even that thought, even that idea, is never the original playbook for Colbey. I've continued to evolve, I've continued to grow, I've continued to build and scale and learn and understand. And it was through those things that I said, all right, this is the path that I'm going. It's your boy Calvay, Inspiration Engineer. My hope is that when you think about me, you think about inspiration engineering, edutainment, and motivation music. I love you, I appreciate you, and until the next time, you already know what it is. Boom! Boom!
