This Mindset Shift Can 10x Your Income | Chris Do

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You are the master of your destiny, not the client. People forget about this all the time. They see the high ground, they see all the negotiation power that they have and assume that the other person holds their life. You have more opportunities to make money or more sources of income than they have to solve this problem.

My guest is Chris Do, the founder of The Futur and the guy who's taught hundreds of thousands of creatives and builders how to actually know and charge what they're worth. We're getting into the beliefs you have to break to stop selling yourself short and the framework that will change how you negotiate every single deal.

So I learned really early on it's just a game. Money is a construct like time. Why do we feel like money is so concrete? It really is not. So we should play and we should try and we can do this.

How could somebody train themselves to have this rich with money mindset if they didn't come from it? You know, I want to start with a move that I love from you, which is when you feel like a client or even a boss is not paying you what you're worth, you have an answer to that. What's the Chris Do move?

Hmm. Well, first I wanna caution everybody. Everybody thinks they're being underpaid and it's not always true. Good point. Right? So I just wanna put that out there. And what we do is we're contextual learners. So when you hear Sally's making more money than you, you don't consider Sally's more experienced, shows up on time, does extra things, is more experienced, went to a better school than you. And you're like, well, Sally's making X. I should make X. Objectively speaking, we're creating more value and we wanna make more money. There's lots of ways to have this conversation. So we'll do it two ways. One with a boss and one with a client. Is that okay?

Let's do it.

Okay. So with a boss, you really do understand that they're kind of master of your destiny and you are not. So it's very important for you to ask them, if I'd like to make more money, what would I need to do to prove to you that I'm contributing to the company? And the answer will sometimes surprise you. People think, oh, it's do more X or Y. And it could be something totally different. Something I learned through therapy a long time ago is if you want to be helpful, make sure what you're doing is considered helpful. So I would just ask, what would it take? And what we want to do is make sure what is said back to us is said as a SMART goal— something that's specific, measurable, uh, actionable, relatable, and also time-bound. So by this time, I will have completed these things, and then therefore you'll consider paying me more, and we should talk about that. So as you're getting closer and closer to that goal, you should do a check-in periodically, not to be annoying. Let's just make sure I'm on track. And if you are, and if they're really a smart boss, they should say like, damn, this person has initiative. They're a good communicator and they're, they're proving themselves before they ask for more.

Mm-hmm.

And usually they'll take the initiative, say, you know what, you're ahead of schedule, Mary, John, Bob, we're ready to go and we'll give it to you. And cuz they realize it's hard to get really good people who take initiative and show that kind of gumption to move forward.

What about if you don't think you're getting paid enough by a client, or a client is pushing back on your price?

Okay, totally different scenario now because you are the master of your destiny, not the client. People forget about this all the time. They see the high ground, they see all the negotiation power that they have, and assume that the other person holds their life. And there's something that my friend Blaren says all the time, is that you have to remember you are the gift He doesn't say that exact word, but you are the prize. He'll say that you have more opportunities to make money or more sources of income than they have to solve this problem. So you need to remember that. Yeah.

That's a great point.

So I usually walk into the room knowing that I've done the work. I put in the 10,000 hours of deliberate intentional practice to be good at what I do. I know that I'm gonna deliver more value than I charge. I know that I'm going to hold the client's goals above my goal to make money. So I come in with the, the with or without you energy. I'm good with you, I'm good without you. My life was fine before you called or sent me an email or reached out via DM. So I'm good, and I'm good if we work, and I'm good if we don't. So you have to come into it with that attitude. Now, okay, go ahead.

Well, I was going to say it's the difference between hungry and thirsty too, and I feel like people can smell if you're too thirsty and you're out there kind of trying to get clients. I need clients, I need them, as opposed to you're actually 'You're lucky to work with me.' And if you're good, that is true.

Yeah. There's a neediness energy that you have. And if you've ever been around really needy people, forget about people. How about pets? The pet that needs to be held, the constant yapping all the time. You kind of grow annoyed cuz now it's like, I find it repulsive that this is happening. So you gotta get rid of that mindset. Okay, so we're in a situation now where I know I'm doing good work. I'm gonna deliver more value than I charge. Then I have to have a conversation with them. And I, I'm going to say my price. I'm going to say without a question mark at the end. I'm not going to use the rising intonation, like I invite you to negotiate me down. I'm going to say it like, like I say my name. It's not a question mark there. I'm going to say it like I know my height or my weight that day. And I'm going to say it and I'm going to pause. I'm going to be silent. This usually is in a pocket of discomfort, the, the silence that we start to betray ourselves. We start to say, well, what if we did this and that? You start to negotiate down and they sense it like that. They know it. So they're gonna ask for more and ask you to lower your price. They're gonna look at other options cuz they're feeling something that maybe hasn't even been articulated, but we're really good at detecting vibe, aura, or energy.

Mm-hmm.

We know that you need it more than I need you.

It's, it's, you know what else is interesting is once you get a really big organization, you have salespeople, right? Yeah. So right now we run a couple companies. These companies are pretty big. We've got a ton of salespeople. You have to hold the line and let's call it vibe or aura so high that those underneath you still can catch some of that. Because what I've found is, you know, if you have any of that wiggle in you, any of that concern about your pricing, concern about your value, it bleeds down the business like a waterfall. And so I think it's really good advice for somebody to think about, you know, as you build your business, you've really got to hold a high, high standard because you're always going to be the standard bearer.

I want to tag on that, which is the person who's out there on the front line between the client or the prospect and your company, they make this mistake all the time. They sell based on themselves and not based on you. So I said, I would never negotiate that way. I would never underprice. Who are you representing right now? Are you representing your level of skill and confidence, your years in business and experience? Are you representing me? And you need to remember that because you come back here, tail tucked between legs, and make concessions that you're not supposed to, we have a problem. Because I would never do that. And if they start talking to me funny, I just get up and walk out of the room. Not to be rude, not to make a scene, but say like, I don't think we're a good fit. I can already tell. And I would say, you deserve someone who's going to do what you want, and I just don't feel like we're that kind of company. And get up. I've done this. I've done this multiple times, and they're shocked. There's rooms of people who have, um, half a billion dollar companies. I'm like, I'm out. I don't care how much money you have, it doesn't make you better, and I'm not going to deal with that. So I just politely say, this is not what we agreed to. I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna walk out.

It's so good. You also—

and you could do this.

You have this line I love, which is charging more is more ethical than charging less. Tell me what you mean by that.

Okay. When you charge more, it allows you to do all kinds of things. Creative people, entrepreneurs are relatively young in their business. They have this idea that somehow it's wrong, it's unethical to charge more because if you could do it for less than anything more than what you can do it for rock bottom is taking advantage of people, manipulating folks. That's not true at all because we're not thinking about the other side of the equation. You have theoretically employed people. You should pay them as much as you possibly can. It's your job as a business owner to give them the very best work experience so that they can be with you for as long as they feel it's conducive to their personal growth and their financial life. This is very important. So when you charge more, you could deliver a better client experience. You can go the extra mile. You don't have to nickel and dime them because they are Oh, make it a little bit bigger, or can we try another option? You would be thrilled to do that. It is my pleasure to do these other things for you. And that's the kind of relationship I wanna have with my clients. I'm gonna pay my people better. I'm gonna make sure that they have great equipment. This is a problem. A lot of people buy equipment based on what's cheapest and not what's best for them. And if you've been working most of your life, you realize ergonomics, the machine, the monitors, all that should be really dialed in because your body's going to break down.

Mm-hmm.

I see people who have been in my industry in the motion design space. They, they're not the same person anymore. Their hands don't work. They have arthritis, they have carpal, carpal tunnel syndrome. They have all kinds of problems. They're very nearsighted now. It's like, and they put on 50, 60, 70 pounds because this is their life. Mm-hmm. So take good care of your people and then in turn, take good care of your clients.

Great point. Somebody listening right now is like, yes, Chris, this is exactly right. This is where I wanna go. I don't know exactly how to price. Like, what is your methodology for pricing and how would you tell someone who's struggling with putting a real price tag on what they do to go do it?

I try to play this game. It's the game of life, which is to find out what the theoretical threshold, the ceiling of what it is that I can charge for what it is that I do. Mm-hmm. And I, I want to always be slightly uncomfortable and I want the client to be uncomfortable with accepting the price. I don't want them to say yes easily. I want them to, be a little bit concerned, consternate about it a little bit and just like, ooh, it's a lot. But you know what? You're worth it. The minute they make that decision, I know we're gonna have a good time together. So what we can do is, what, what industry are we in? Should I—

why don't we say, let's say, uh, creative industry.

Okay. Let's say you, you do brand identity. A lot of people need that logo identity systems, things like that. The problem that we have is we try to find prices that are low and then lower ourself to meet those lower prices. We very rarely say, what are the best people in my space? Similarly, size charging. We always look for the low one, never the high one. We, we were both looking for acceptance, but we never look high. So aim higher and say, what would they be charging? Could I do that? Well, we won't know until we try. So when we're in front of a client, you can say something, uh, it's called price bracketing. I'm sure you're familiar with this. You can say, to do a project like this for a client like you, it's going to be between this number and that number. There's two ways you can say it. You can say lower to higher, which is the more natural of the two. Which is like, say from $5,000 to $10,000. We give 'em a nice range. The mistake that people make is like $2,000 and $2,500. Like, eh, well, what's the point? Big numbers, big round numbers, $5,000 to $25,000. They're like, well, what do we get for $25,000? And what are we getting for $5,000? Now they're inviting you to tell 'em a story and you can tell 'em any kind of story at this point. There's another way you can do this, which is you start with a higher number and you pause for a brief second, and then you say the lower number. You can say it's going to be between $25,000. And $5,000. So then you're using anchoring at that point, and they're sitting there thinking, $25,000, we can't afford that. Ooh, $5,000 sounds pretty great, but you know, we don't want to seem cheap, so we'll say we have $18,000. And $18,000 could be $13,000 more than you're going to ask for in the first place. So you can do price bracketing, and then inevitably they're going to push back a little bit, usually, especially if you're trying something new. Like, gosh, that is a lot of money. The best response is to agree. I never like to disagree with this kind of stuff. It is a lot of money. What kind of problem are we trying to solve? And then let them talk about the problem. One of my rules is never justify your price. So when they say, why does it cost so much, Chris? Because it costs that much for me to do it. I'm not saying you can't get it done for less, because I'm sure you can, but not from me. You have a right, and I encourage you to explore those options. And if you feel like they're not going to meet your needs, come talk to me.

You know what's so funny is I swear this, this morning I was literally going back and forth with one of our portfolio companies, and I'll show you. The comment was, why would we ever justify our price? And, and I basically say, I don't do discount businesses. Like, if you want to get discount advice, if you want to get discount investments, if you want to get discount product, there are plenty of people out there. Um, but I'm not your girl. And so you should go and find what discount gets you.

Yeah.

And then you'll be back. And, and so I love this because this is not normal. Most people, one, it's very hard to push back. You know, most people are not used to this idea of like, no, I'm not going to accept your frame. You're sitting over here with a frame that says this price is unreasonable. I'm actually going to like push back on it and have a different perspective. And so I think this is really, really useful for somebody who's like, Oh, well, you know, actually we could— let me throw in an extra this and we could discount here. And there is this natural inclination to add more as opposed to like stand on your less. So I love your price justification. What about in a situation where somebody comes to you and is like, I don't know what to charge my customers because I don't know what their budget is. And so could I, you know, do I do competitive shopping for a budget? Do I just put out a bigger number than what I think some of my competitors even do? How do you like get to that first even bracket?

Okay. First of all, when somebody says to you, I don't know what my budget is, you tell me, you are the professional, they might say in a more condescending way, it's a lie. It's a very easy way to figure this thing out because though they might not know the number, they know how much is too much. So our job is to find out how much is too much and then push them even more. Okay. And we're going to change their frame. There's lots of ways to do this. So typically I'll go through this. It's a nuanced thing. I think you talk— let's go tactical. I can do that here. Okay. So number one is when you say, okay, so you don't know how much money you have. Great. Is it, uh, in orders of magnitude, is it $10,000, $100,000, or is it $1 million? And as soon as you say that, they'll know right away. Well, it's definitely not $1 million. I'm like, and don't tell them the number. Just say, well, what number would it be? Well, we have $476,000. I'm like, okay, so we come somewhere near that, you're going to be okay, give or take. So like $460,000, $480,000, you're okay? They're like, yeah. So you see what I just did there? I got them to understand in orders of magnitude, and this is how you do big, big scoping on things you don't know. You just put out a big number and see how they respond. And then when they tell you a number, you know they're holding back. So don't just come in at $468,000, what they said. 'Cause then they'll think, I should have said lower, 'cause that's what he was gonna come in at. So you just gauge it and you really like read their body language, their tone, the hesitation in their voice and the micro expressions in their face to see what the truth is.

Yeah.

I've heard it somewhere, maybe you said it, maybe someone else has said it, that said something like, the mind can live in fantasy, but the body lives in reality. So don't listen to the words per se, listen to the tone, listen to the pauses, and then watch their face and body language 'cause it'll tell you a lot. Give you an example. If they go, yeah, it's fine. We could, we, we, we could definitely afford that. So it was really hard for me actually to shake my head while agreeing, cuz I, I caught myself there. What they're really saying is no, we cannot afford that. If you submit a bid, they're gonna ghost on you. So what I like to do is be super transparent and be very direct. When you said yes, you can afford this, I noticed there was some hesitation. Is that the case or am I misreading it? Well, you know, now that you mention it, and there's lots of reasons why people lie to you, social cues, pressure to like not look cheap, like you can't afford it to look less than. So people will tell you all kinds of things. Plus they're also a bit conflict averse as well. So when, when you float a price they don't like, they'll probably agree in that way. And you're going to find like, well, this advice didn't work from Chris because you weren't paying attention to all the other clues you were getting. That's one thing that you can do. The other thing you can do is to prevent people from triple bidding, fairly common practice. We need to get 3 bids. In some spaces, they're mandated to get 3 bids to make sure it's fair, and they'll pick probably one in the middle-ish, right? This one feels too cheap, that feels too premium, we'll pick the one in the middle. So what, what many experts will, will tell you, and I do this myself, I'll give them 3 prices myself. I'll say, here's what the bare bones option is, and here's the white glove Ritz-Carlton Four Seasons hotel experience is going to be like. Here's what most people pick and it's the one in the middle. And that's like choice architecture. We give 'em 3 options and you can see everywhere you go from SaaS products to real products, people always give you 3 options and 80% of the time they pick the one in the middle.

I think because of your experience doing so much creative work, which doesn't have a set price tag, I mean there's some cost of goods, but, but really it's not like making a truck, right? Mm-hmm. So when you're making commercials for the biggest, you know, celebrities or companies in the world, and when you're making music videos, the price can kind of be whatever.

Yeah.

So you had to get really good at this in a way that a lot of entrepreneurs don't because they have set prices. They think, well, a lamp costs $20 and somebody has to break their frame. And we were talking beforehand about fashion and how like previously I was like, I like your outfit. And you were like, thanks. And how previously you didn't like to buy fashionable or expensive, let's call it, actual things. And it was because I think you said you know, I know the manipulation and tactics that go into pricing these luxury things. But then once you bought them, you felt differently. And so I guess my question for you there is, what is the manipulation that you see go into really expensive items so that we can decide if we still want to buy them or not? Because it's not right or wrong, it's just should we?

Yeah. Seth Godin wrote a great book on this, and it says all marketers are liars. And we, the consumer, are complicit in the lie. We want to be lied to because the human mind loves the story, right? So if I showed you this amazing painting and told you someone in your family acquired it and they passed away and they've bequeathed it to you in their will, and it's a Jackson Pollock, they bought it when they're, you know, whatever, at a flea market somewhere in the Netherlands one day, and you're like, oh my God, I have a Jackson Pollock. How much is that painting worth? Tens of millions of dollars. And then they're like, oh, my bad. That was just a painter's tarp. Just spillover paint. You're like, how much is that worth? And you're like, not a lot, actually. It's kind of taking up space. I need to throw it away. No, I was just kidding. It's a Jackson Pollock. Oh, okay. It's worth— so just understanding the story behind something changes your perceived value so much. And if I were to do this in a workshop context, you'll see the pendulum swing from trash to like cash and back and forth. It's just about the story. So if we want to build a really great brand, whether you're buying into a brand or you are creating the brand, you need to make sure you learn how to tell that story, a story that's compelling, because the better the story, the better the brand. So that's one thing. Number two is this idea of scarcity, is that if we put a finite amount on something, then it seems it's more valuable because human mind wants the things that we cannot have. So if there's a Labubu that you want, if there's a Pokémon card you're dying to collect, and they artificially control how many they'll make, same manufacturing, or like variant colorways for collectibles. Because of that, their status that we say, I can have this one thing that only 100 were made, and that means that I have a lot of money and I buy and I can afford to buy these ridiculously expensive things as a sign of my wealth and my accomplishments and my success. And when we buy it, we're not buying the physical tangible thing, we're buying all the intangible things. Rory Sutherland talks about this all the time. We're too busy selling the tangibles. We need to focus on the intangibles. So when it comes to luxury goods, I'm wearing a Rolex. Somebody gave this to me, so I'm really happy, appreciative. Thank you very much. And I know that they make a million of these things. And somewhere along the way, I remember getting out of school thinking to myself, I love the design. It's super timeless. I went to the store and bought it like how you normally buy stuff. I think it cost me all of $3,500. I bought a Submariner. Years later, I find that the market has been flooded with too many Submariners, and Rolex made a decision: they're going to throttle how you can buy these things. So I understand the business model. They want you to buy so many of the precious metals and the stones, the, the ones that are $10,000, $20,000, $50,000, $60,000. If you buy enough of them, they'll let you buy a lower-priced Submariner, which is a wild thing. The margins are in the more expensive watches, And then they, they created a premium back market or gray market for the, the watches. So now they sell 'em above retail.

Mm-hmm.

It's wild how they do that. That's the manipulation game we're talking about.

Chris Do spent years grinding at something he really loved because he believes passion follows mastery. That's the version of this I see ending acquisition deals before they even start. People wait until they feel ready, until they feel confident. But that's the thing. I actually find that confidence is a byproduct of reps. So in the Contrarian Academy, we teach you how to get the reps without blowing up your first deal to do it without completely changing your life. We do this because we believe in practice. When you do biweekly live deal reviews with experts in the space and actually figure out what are the red flags, what are the green flags, how do you figure out the right business to buy? Well, then when the business you are supposed to own or part of the business you're supposed to own comes in front of you, you already know it because you've seen a million like it, which is probably why you're going to talk to our 35 advisors in M&A. Have 6 or 7 live calls a month with them, and have a way to figure out how to buy a business even when you're employed. Most of our members still have a W-2, but they're serious about buying within the next 12 months. If that's you, you can apply here at contrarianthinking.co/academy. You know, it's interesting. One of my favorite mentors back in the day at Goldman said the only reason anybody buys anything is exclusivity, timeliness, scarcity, relevance. And he's like, if you can figure out a way to wrap all 4 of those around whatever you do, you'll be able to sell more, more frequently and with less struggle. And yet I think when we build products or we think about business, we forget about it. We just say doors open, bring everybody in because there's this fear that if we don't, you know, we can't restrict, that'll mean less sales. But there seems to be some sort of law of the universe that is actually the more you restrict it, the more sales that you get. I'm curious for you, You also have a line that, that is really good. It's something along the lines of, I'm not the cheapest. And so if that's what you want, I'm probably not for you. I'm curious at what moment you drop that in a sales conversation.

You know, people ask me about this all the time. They're like, you can do what you do because you're you and you've done so many things. What they don't understand is the mindset comes before the results, because otherwise, how does one get the results? And it might shock some people, at the very beginning of my career, once I got out of design school, the first freelance work that I did was for some other designer, subcontracted work, designing brochures for a bank. Appreciate the opportunity, but you know, I did the work and they paid me $30 an hour. I was thinking, I'm fast. How much money did I make on this job? I worked on it for 6 hours and I was thinking to myself, I didn't go to 4 years of design school to like be the best designer in the world to be designing Bank brochures. This is boring. I could have done this work before school. So I really thought about that. Once I got into the right industry, that was super exciting. Doing motion design, working on commercials and music videos and feature films. I was like, let's play with this idea. And there's a lot more elasticity to price than you think. Okay. It does help if you're in a hot market, in an industry where there are more buyers than sellers. So you have all the right side of arbitrage on that. Okay, so I started going and I was freelancing, doing contract work. And so they're like, what's your day rate? I was like, $300. Like, cool, I'll do the work. It's like, okay, they seem pretty happy. I know I'm better than, than the other people who are doing the work. Let's try $400 and $500 and $600. So with the same client who's contracting work, I was changing my rate every single time they called me, which is seeming like every third or fourth day. It got to a point where I was charging $800 a day. Just barely outta school myself, and this is pretty, pretty wild cuz that's like 1995. Their executive producer called me up and she said, Chris, you know, we see what you're doing. Like, what is going on with you? Like, I just approved your last invoice and it was this amount and now it's $800. I'm like, yeah. She goes, care to explain? I'm like, no. Why don't you call the creative director who I was working for, ask him if it's worth it. And then if it's not, have him talk to me and I'll adjust the rate. Invoice been paid. So I learned really early on, it's just a game. And like money is a, a construct like time. And why do we feel like money is so concrete? It really is not. So we should play and we should try and we can do this.

It's interesting because you don't come from a background that was super abundant with money.

No.

You know, so a lot of people might hear this and go, well, he was probably raised with a ton of money. He probably had money all the time. He never had a poor person mindset. But that's actually not true because you come from humble backgrounds and actually immigrated to this country before you started building. So I guess my question to you there is, were you always this way? Like, and how could somebody train themselves to have this sort of rich with money mindset if they didn't come from it?

Yeah, my parents and I, along with my siblings, were immigrants from Vietnam. We fled the country in 1975. So they lost everything. They lost everything— culture, language, heritage. Basically, they lost it all and started over. So when you lose everything, you kind of adopt that mindset. So my parents, to this day, I love them. They're a little tight with money. Like, my dad, the joke goes, buys his groceries where he buys his fashion at Costco. And the cheaper, the better. Now, here's where the confidence and the mindset comes from. When you're good at something, when you put in your 10,000 hours of practice, you develop a new self-story. And the beautiful thing is today you write that chapter in your book, tomorrow you write a new chapter.

You know, it's funny, I remember my father, same thing. We make fun of all of his Costco clothes to this day. I kind of got him out of it a little bit, but you can see the pain on his face when he has expensive clothes. And I do think it comes from, you know, that I think a lot of that generation that worked really hard, they just, they almost can't comprehend the things we spend money now.

Yeah, they have a guilty conscience about it and they get too precious. And this is not a flex, but when I was able to buy the first real car, I bought a Mercedes CLK 430. And after a couple of years I was tired of it, so I wanted to get a new car. And I was like, what am I going to do with this? I just gave it to my dad. And my friend's like, you gave your dad your Mercedes? I'm like, yeah, because he needs a car. Gave it to my dad. My dad did not know what to do with it. I think he drove it like 3 times, then he sold it. And he wanted to buy a van. And to this day, I think he still drives the same Honda Odyssey minivan.

Yeah.

He sold it to my aunt and then he used that money and, cuz he's like, I just don't feel good at driving it. Somebody might hit it, somebody might break in. And it's like, I don't know how to deal with that.

Yeah.

My dad.

Well, one of the cool things about listening to somebody like you is exactly this. Like you get an opportunity to reframe your brain because I do think we are all programmed. I mean, I love a line that you said, which was basically because of all your practice, you were able to write a new self story.

Yeah.

And that idea of the 10,000 hours leads to, you know, 10,000 new neural connections in your brain seems to be really true. But I want to talk about one of the things that you get paid a ton of money to do, which is personal brand. I like starting to talk with the money stuff because I think if you're listening, sometimes personal brand sounds fuzzy.

Yeah.

You know, and so people are like, what does that even mean? And I don't have time for this. And is this really a good use of my resources? And I don't want to be on the internet. And, you know, You know, Chris and Codie Sanchez are yappers. I'm not a yapper. All the things, right? But it's really hard to sell a Zale diamond at a Tiffany's price with the Zale brand. And so I think brand in general is something that feels fuzzy but is so important. So I guess, can you lay out in your mind what is important about brand, personal or otherwise, and why should everyone be really conscious of their brand?

A lot of people would say like all the action and the activity and the heat is in marketing because it could be measured. There's an ROI. You put money in, you put money— you can take money out when it doesn't work. It's very clear. Is brand just about impressions and feeling, and is it about a vibe? And it can be much more scientific than that. Here's how— here's what we know. When you buy a t-shirt and there's no brand attached to it, like literally it's just in plastic bag with 3 shirts. What are you going to pay? You're going to pay the utility price of the 3 t-shirts. In theory, the cotton, the construction, and the packaging, the shipping to a place, I'm not a dime more. So basically, you've covered the cost of producing this thing. Now, you, you take that t-shirt and you give it to 3 different companies with 3 very different brands— we'll define what that is in a second— then that price skyrockets from $10 for 3 shirts to like $3,300. Or even $100. And why is that? It can literally be the exact same shirt. I want to point out to like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, because at the bottom is just like food, shelter, that kind of stuff. Like, am I going to be alive? Next is about, can I have some abundance? Can, can I buy some things? And then, do I have meaningful connections, relationships, and family? And then above that is something called status, and above that I would consider identity. Self-actualization. So we, we live in a time of the greatest prosperity in human history. There we live longer, there's less dangers to us, and now we're sitting around not thinking about, am I going to eat tomorrow? We're asking our questions, questions about, do I belong? Who am I? And who do I identify with? And how do people perceive me? These are very important things. So the kind of watch you wear, the earrings, the car you drive, the zip code you live in. Yeah, all that stuff signals to other people how you see yourself. And you can say it's superficial and it's vain and it's all those things, and I would agree with you because we are superficial, vain human beings. So what we understand is when we're able to achieve the status that we have because we're buying this brand of shirt or that brand of shirt, it signals to other people, I belong to this group of people and I've achieved this much in my life. So it's actually quite valuable. And I'll do this test in my talk later today where I say, okay, is it the brand that's more important or is it because it's a better product? Most of us will lie to ourselves and say, well, I buy Nikes or Adidas because they're a better shoe. That's a bunch of BS. You buy it because your story is involved with theirs. So the brand creates the product. It's really weird. And then the customer creates the brand because it's in our hearts and minds that we determine collectively this company stands for these things. And the classic example, I, I think when Budweiser tried to do something that was non-binary, it said something that was quote unquote very woke. And there was a lot of backlash for that because we know that's not them and they're just signaling virtue signaling to people. And it was just signaling to the wrong core demographic and was even them. Good try, I guess, but a horrible idea. Just horrible.

So how about the, like, world right now is, you know, there's a lot of similarity to it. Let's just say you see a lot of people going out there with the same videos, the same ideas, the same looks on brands. You know, even startups in Silicon Valley, they all sort of have the bright colors, this, you know, singular lines. Everything's getting simpler. But you've kind of famously said, don't try to be better, be different. What does that mean when it comes to brand?

Okay, that is a line I want to give credit where it's due— Sally Hogshead, which I have yet to meet, but we're kind of professional lurkers of one another. I think it's a brilliant way to sum up the core of branding. The essence of branding is to be different, because if you're the same, by virtue of that, you're moving towards commodity. Right? So if we buy rice, we buy sugar, or we buy anything, and it's the same as something else, there's no reason why I'm compelled to pay more. That makes sense, right? But you can look across the aisleway, there's so many options today for the almost literally the same product at vastly different prices because the story that they tell makes them feel different. And do you have a favorite brand? Or, or maybe the listeners who watch your channel, maybe you're like, they— we all love this brand.

Yeah, you know, I have a favorite, a favorite funky brand.

Okay.

Imogene and Willie.

Okay.

It's a sort of Americana, new age, let's call it hipster Levi's is like how I would describe it.

Okay. Do they charge that new age price?

Oh, God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My husband will, you know, he's actually the one that turned me on to it. But their jeans are way too expensive. They're actually— talk about brands. They're actually uncomfortable because they're raw denim. You're not allowed to wash them. They have to go in the freezer. You know, it makes no sense whatsoever, actually. Like, there are Levi's that have existed since the beginning of Levi's that got washed and had all the things happen to them. So they've actually made the product more difficult. They've made it less comfortable. And that's part of the selling point, which I guess nails your point exactly.

Yeah. Is the selvedge denim—

why? No, it's because it's raw. So it hasn't been— the color isn't captured like properly. It hasn't been heated. So if you wash it too many times, it bleeds. Oh, because it's raw, it's never treated. So it's organic. There's some portion of that. I'm sure that I'm butchering their sales pitch, but then also it is really deep and dark, their colors.

Okay. So when you buy that pair and you wear it despite it being uncomfortable and hard to manage, what story do you tell yourself about this pair of jeans and you?

I'm cool.

Sanchez.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I feel like they're cool. They do look different. They're a little bit more structural, like jeans.

They're, they're, they're rigid, right?

They're stiff. And I think the brand has an identity I really like, you know, American-based, important to me, and kind of have a throwback to some of the old ways. They have a lot of salvaged stuff in their t-shirts, which I guess is me trying to signal that I am protecting the environment while we're flying all over Europe. So that's unreasonable too.

Okay. So being eco-conscious is a luxury of the people who have means. Yeah, because when you're starving, it's like, I'll get whatever I can get, polyester or not, doesn't really matter. So perhaps the story you're telling yourself is American-made, support America, it's organic, so it's better for the environment, and it's tough to deal with because I'm tough to deal with, maybe. And you know, I can handle it, I'm a grown-ass woman, I know how to deal with this stuff. And maybe it's a signal to other people like I'm in the know. You may or may not be in the know, but I'm in the know and I'm okay with that. And I'll pay the freaking premium price to have this scratch my body and have to freeze it in the freezer because your husband's like opening the freezer like, why are there a pair of jeans in there? It's because—

fault—

he's killing the bacteria, you know, it's necessary.

Exactly.

And you'll do that. Yeah, for the pleasure of that. This is why I think people make it hard to buy their products, hard to take care of, because Like we need some challenges in our life and we feel like we have to work for it. It's worth more. Mm.

Yeah, that's very true. What, what do you think? How does this compare to the idea of fake it till you make it?

Okay.

Like, like I know that there's real components of brand, but should we fake it till we make it? Or is there a different way to think about that?

Okay. Possibly two different concepts. You're, you're at, you're asking me to combine two things here. So let me try and figure this part out. Let me just, share with you my take on fake it or make it. A lot of people think this is a horrible idea because the word fake is in it, and no one wants to be fake. It feels fraudulent. It feels like a lie or deception. But I gotta tell you, everybody who's ever been great in, in this lifetime of theirs has once thought of themselves higher, better, stronger, faster, more intelligent than they were at that moment in time. Ira Glass, who's the host of This American Life, one of the most beloved podcasts, he said that for years he had been working on podcasting. He plays this tape. He's like, listen to this tape of me. I'm years into it. This is not my first year. He's stammering. His voice is all over the place. And he goes, you know, there's this distance between the taste level we have and our skill to actually make it. And it's that thing that, the gap that tortures us. That say like, why aren't I as good as I know in my mind? I think this is a very healthy attitude to have, which is to be able to dream of something that doesn't exist, including your future self, your future goals, your future partner, and your children. Because we need to imagine it, because what's imagined in the mind becomes— turns into reality. So if we can't imagine it, the likelihood of us achieving it, it's not so high. I have no problems with that term fake it or make it, but if you don't like the words and you like the idea I don't know if I've coined this, but I just tell people, believe it till you achieve it. And then also they're like, oh, that's fine. Literally the same thing. So this is packaging, this is branding. Maybe it's a little bit of marketing. So words turns out are very, very powerful things. Now when it comes to your personal brand, let's say you're not a nice person. You're curt, you're not very generous, and it's all about what you want to get in this life. And then you go on TV, on YouTubes, and you tell people, oh, I'm about generosity, I'm about kindness and looking after people. That's faking it. And that eventually will reveal itself and it inevitably will not look on you, look good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've all met those people.

Yes.

Before.

Yes. They're everywhere.

Yeah. You said something that I loved. You're like, you don't really have a, you, you've said before, you don't have a marketing problem, you have a positioning problem. Which is sort of exactly what you just talked about there. You're not, it's the same idea, it's just poorly packaged. So what do you mean when you say you don't have a marketing problem, you have a positioning problem? And do most people who sell something actually have that as their problem?

I have no way to verify this, but I suspect it to be that everybody wants more customers. To get more customers, you need more leads. And they think, if I wave a magic wand, I'll just get more leads and I'll be able to do this. Actually, there's lots of, lots of problems. You probably don't have a great offer. You probably don't know who your ideal client profile is. And back to this whole thing, all right, we seem to be more interested in things that were made specifically for a certain type of person. We understand this. Like, those jeans that you bought don't appeal to me. I'm not gonna wear them. And it might not appeal to a lot of other people for a lot of different reasons. It's too woke, it's too hippie. I don't care if it's American or not, it's too expensive. So they're not into that. But the clearer they get on the person they're serving and what they stand for, the more likely it is they're gonna find customers. It's counterintuitive. So when we talk to creative people, they're like, well, I work with entrepreneurs. Duh. Who else would you be work? I work with people. Okay. That's, that's really clear and specific. So they're afraid that if they were to become more specific with who they serve, then they're gonna lose out on the market. It's a, it's a weird mindset. So they look at the total addressable market, say it's this table, 8.5 billion people on earth. I serve all of them. In fact, none of them are looking for you because they don't understand what you stand for. But in the surface area of this, where this cup lives, that's a gigantic amount of people. If we're just to focus on them and we talk about their problems, their needs, their wants or dreams, and their fears, those people become super interested. These people could care less because they've never cared. So instead of trying to capture nothing, you're actually looking at something that's quite concentrated.. And that's why it's a positioning problem. You had said before in our conversation, scarcity, being exclusive. I mean, things that are hard to get, they're not abundantly available, that are only offered to a few people that we actually have to put in extra effort to get, become more desirable to us. Literally, I was at a shop here and I saw a skateboard. I'm like, oh, maybe I should get that, but it's probably everywhere. That night I'm like online trying to find, I can't find it. It's bothering me right now so much. Oh, and there's no room left in my luggage. I'm thinking about going back back to that skate shop to buy it because I think this is not available anymore. Had there been 3,000 of them available, I'm like, I'll just order it when I order it. The same thing is true about people in their business. They don't have a lane because they haven't thought about it or because they're afraid to commit.

Yeah. You know, it's funny, we see this so constantly. We've taught about 15,000 small business owners over the course of the last 5 years. And if I have everybody raise their hands when I tell them the main problem that, you know, you're going to have in your business, leads. I need more leads. The problem is then you go to your website and your website doesn't really speak English. It says we're for transparency in building. And what is it actually? A custom construction company. Nobody's walking around saying, I want transparency in my building process. They're like, I want to be on time, on budget, and it to be fucking beautiful. Those are the 3 things. And so it's interesting because I found with most of them, they think it's leads, they don't think it's positioning. And then when you finally get down to it, they don't actually know exactly who they serve because they've never actually pulled their top 50 or 100 clients and been like, who of these people do I love so much and they love me so much that if I could just clone them, I would be thrilled to only serve this person forever. And so I think a lot of your work is about, you know, narrowing down to find the person who's already looking for you. You know, one of the, one of the things I love about the way that you dress is the same thing. It sort of signals I'm a creative, you know, I'm going to do things my own way. You know, some of these things are even customized. Like, you can't even, you know, you've got the tape on your hat. So this isn't— you can't even just buy it like this because I've got my own addition to it. So probably if somebody comes to you and they're like, I want something really corporate, exactly how I want it, you're going to be like, I'm not the guy for you. This is not right. And so even the way you present shows who you are. But I guess I was wondering how you get over this idea of being like a people pleaser, basically, and just becoming sort of this amorphous thing that everybody wants you to be. You talk about avoiding the three monsters: perfection monster, the advice monster, and the people pleaser monster. I'm curious, how do you get over these? And especially, how do you get over that people pleaser component?

That's a tough one. The people pleaser one afflicts so many people, and it starts early on in our childhood. So I got into a strange conversation with a friend of mine, and she goes, you know, I'm really proud of you. I said, oh, I know you mean that to be a compliment, but I don't interpret it as one. She goes, what do you mean? I said, well, when you say you're proud, you exert power over me. Like, who are you to be proud of me? And I'm not looking for you to be proud of me. She goes— she was like bent out of shape, and we had this whole debate. She goes, don't you tell your kids that you're proud of them? I'm like, no, I don't. I don't. Why would I do that? Because for them to— for me to be proud means there's times when I'm not proud. I'm always proud. I'm proud when you exist. That's all that needs to happen. You, you get, you get, um, love, appreciation, and joy just because you exist in this world. I bet you're proud of what you did. Okay, so I'm not really into all that stuff because I don't want my kids to grow up looking for the approval of another human being ever. And not to say they're not disrespectful or that they're disrespectful or not appreciative of anything— we deal with that— but those are things I don't hold over anybody. So I think when you're sitting here trying to please someone, it's because in your construct, in the way that you grew up, the way that you matter in the world is to make other people happy. And I'm a recovering people pleaser myself. I tell people I'm a non-people pleasing middle child, and it's something that I've had to work through, through therapy and through coaching, that I found that I would give in to my employees' demands, uh, I would give in to demands of my clients, and, and I wasn't protecting the most important people in my life, including myself. And that really bothered me. So people who knew this about me would be very passive-aggressive, and they, they would say, for example, know that I didn't want to fund this venture, and then they would say to me, oh, I've already funded it, they're my employee, and if you want me to cancel, let me know. They would do that, and it would just eat me up inside, but I didn't have the ability to say, yo, that is so not cool, cancel that. And you know what, 'Leave. You're done. Because that's super disrespectful. You knew I didn't want to do this. You did it anyways.' Super passive-aggressive. Well, your imagination doesn't need to go there. That person didn't last much longer after that. So once we start to learn to define our boundaries and not to be so scared of, like, making other people unhappy, we find that we can again write a new self-story and start to reprogram neural pathways. Just like, you know what, I could do this when it comes to cup of tea. I can also do, do this when it comes to million-dollar purchase. I could do both.

I love this part. Chris is talking about the advice monster, right? The voice that constantly makes you collect more input instead of making the call. Most owners I know have a version of that, not because, you know, you're indecisive, but because you're making real business decisions without anyone in the room that's actually done it at the level you're trying to reach. This is actually why I created the Growth Boardroom. It's an on-demand board of advisors for owners who already have a team, who already have revenue, and are done making high-stakes calls in isolation. And you want to charge what you're worth. You're probably not right now. Most of our owners are underpriced by anywhere from 30% to 300%. So the decisions where being wrong costs you a year, those are about to be done. Because when our deal coaches help you figure out how to do quarterly planning, how to actually price, how to hire, and how to do our operating system the way private equity does, then you'll find the exact lever to pull in your business next. Most of our members come back with supply chain fixes, new client acquisition systems, cash flow savings. They didn't even know they were bleeding. So if you own a business and you're tired of making million-dollar decisions alone, you can apply at contrarianthinking.co/boardroom. The thing about your friends saying that they're proud of you is such a fascinating insight. It's funny, I was chatting with my mom the other day and she said the same thing, and I had to— I didn't, I didn't have the balls actually to say anything back to her because we're very close and I love her dearly. And so there's some story I tell myself about that would really hurt her feelings. Yeah, but I felt the same way. I thought, I don't do this business for anybody else to be proud of me. And it's a beautiful byproduct. If you are, that's great. But it's actually not because of that.

Yeah.

But it's quite hard, I think. How can you establish your constraints in business when you can't establish them in life? You know, so maybe that is part of one of the ways to start it. If you're having a hard time sort of people pleasing your clients or your employees, start with the people who are closest to you that you know are going to love you no matter what anyways, and saying, hey, I don't really resonate with that.

Yeah. Now I will say this because I don't seem like a jerk about it. My mom does say, I'm proud of you. All the time.

What do you say to her?

I say, I love you, Mom.

You don't, you don't say anything?

I don't say anything because it would make her too sad. Well, it might. I know her intentionality, which is, you've done things that I just admire so much. And it's not, it's no longer a power move for her to say that. But she says it all the time, which is a difference. See, so some parents will say, I'm proud of you on the condition of. My mom is like unconditionally proud of me, unconditionally loves me. And that's what's different about her. She's a very sweet lady. And so, and I'm not looking for it. So the reason why I don't have beef with my mom or dad is because I'm not a child anymore. I'm a grown-ass man. You can say whatever you want. That's your world. That's your reality. And I respect you. I'm just going to do things my way. Now, when it comes, and if there's going to be somebody who's proud of you, it should be the people who brought you into this world, who gave you life. I think they have a legitimate claim to say that, but I don't register it like that. So I would not encourage you to get on the phone with your mom.

I want to run after her.

I would just say, "Fuck you, Mom.

Take your pride and shove it up." I think one of the points of adulthood is real— making those realizations that maybe the things you did when you were a little kid, really trying to impress your parents, and they were great motivators in that way, doesn't have to be what leads you anymore.

So we have a lot more agency than we give ourselves credit for. People are like, I hate this town, I hate this job, I hate my partner. Well, who chose them? Mm-hmm. Unless you're chained to something with a gun to your head, you have a lot of agency. It's much easier for us to complain about something than to actually commit to change. Yeah.

And part of the, the reason that things won't change, I feel like, is you continue to say the same, and then the universe, at least in my case, usually eventually has to dropkick you spectacularly, uh, in order for you to move. And that probably wouldn't have happened if you had just moved more quickly. So I love that, you know, like in a different vein, you've talked a lot historically about visualizing and of course visualizing brand and graphics and, you know, some of the beautiful things that you create is really important. But you've talked about it broadly, how even gold medalists pre-visualize what they're doing. And so can you talk a little bit about this idea of the ritual that you do if you want to win or build the life you love?

Yes, yes. So I want to connect it to this one idea before I forget. My friend who's a design luminary, his name is Brian Collins, he goes, designers are futurists. We imagine all the possible ways that this can happen and we choose the most optimal path. I love that description. Brian is an intellect and he's a, he's a, he's intellectual and he's a designer and creative person. He just gives so much meaning and purpose to the kinds of things that my people do. So we sit there and we imagine like, What does the Codie Sanchez logo look like? What does the COVID art look like? And we rehearse them in our mind, and sometimes we make them on paper or on the screen. And then through our intuition and our experience, we pick the one that's most optimal for you to achieve your result. That's pretty cool. So they can do that in that way, and then they somehow shut off their brain for everything else in their life, which is really bothersome to me. Design legend, I think Massimo Vignelli had said something like, how you do one thing is how you do everything. So if you could design this, you could do everything else. So if you can see in one aspect of your life you could do this, but in another aspect of your life you can't, resolve those conflicts, figure it out, and put them together. Okay, really, just like, if I could talk back to my partner, why can't I talk back to the client? If I can ask for more with my children, why can't I ask more for this other thing? You can, and it works because we desire to be consistent, right? It's like you don't want to live multiple value sets or belief system. It's just too complicated. Krishnamurti said something like, um, the highest form of human intelligence is to observe without judgment. And I'm like, I'm aspiring to be that. Now what I want to do is say to myself, okay, what do I want in my life? Where do I want to live? What kinds of things do I want to achieve this year, this moment? And I really focus on that, and I dream on it. I'm dreaming while I'm waking, just thinking about over and over again rehearsing in my mind so that when those opportunities or choices are in front of me, my mind has already figured out that this seems like the most likely path. It's like if we sat in a forest and I said, let's, let's go find the thing, the chances of you finding the thing are kind of impossible because what is the thing? But if I said, if we find the mountain that looks like a witch's nose, that peak, and it has all these things, now we can get really specific. And you may not even want to venture off into the woods. You might wanna ask me a few questions about what direction is it in, approximately how far away is it? So what we're doing there is we're making the abstract more concrete. The more that we can visualize that in our minds, I think the more likely we're able to achieve it.

You know, it's interesting. I was talking to my husband today and he's a Navy SEAL and they go through, um, something called ground training, which is basically the Green Berets have perfected it, but they drop you off in the middle of nowhere. Um, and you have to find a series of things with a very limited number of supplies. Memorize. And you have to do it in a certain amount of time. And if you don't, you're kicked out of BUD/S training, which is the preparation to become a SEAL. And we were just talking this morning about how he's quite good at this because he used to be a hunter with his kid, with his father when he was just a kid. And one of the ways that he was one of the fastest to do this during his BUD/S training, which he would be embarrassed for me speaking on it on here, is something called terrain navigation,. And we're not taught this actually in modern society anymore. You're taught to use maps. We used to obviously be taught by the stars. That was way back in the day. But terrain navigation is exactly that. So if you're in an environment, always anchoring yourself to some of the highest things that you can see. And it's interesting when you think about that in your life as well. Like, what is the terrain you want to navigate towards consistently? What is the highest point that you can imagine? Because a lot of times that's It's the easiest thing to find as opposed to what do we obsess on instead? Daily rituals, what to do every morning. I've never really associated with that at all because the most successful people I know have nothing in fucking common about how they run their days, like almost nothing. Some of them drink a lot, some of them drink zero, some of them get up early, some of them stay up late, like almost no similarities. But they all did aspire to do something really, really big or great. They had that like terrain, that monument in front of them that they wanted no matter what. So it's a beautiful way to think about it.

I bet you they're really obsessive.

I do think— I kind of think about it as that peak, like they're always looking at that one thing that they want to achieve.

Yeah.

But some of them are obsessive in cycles and some of them are obsessive in like a season and then not obsessive. Yeah.

You know, because I think there's an exceptional few who can be obsessed long term consistently without burning out.

Yeah.

So obsession is one of these things that isn't— you just go and never stop. You go as far as you can go and you take a break and then you go again and— but you just never stop. You take breaks in between. Mm-hmm. So it's something like if you care about your health, you become obsessed about it and you might have vacation time and then you're off, but then you're back on the system again and you're, you're focused on that.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's another quote I like from you where you talk about passion follows mastery. And whether or not that is true or not. I'd be curious to take on that.

Yeah. So a lot of people will say like, there's multiple takes on this in terms of like, oh, don't talk about passion. Passion, you know, like, what is that even? And well, if we just focus on doing boring work that no one wants to do, we develop discipline, which is the delaying gratification, giving up the things that you want to get ultimately what you need in life. And that's really, really important. And then sometimes in that process, you're like, wow, I didn't know this about myself. I think I found my passion. The example for me is I didn't know I wanted to create content. I'm an introvert. I'm super socially awkward. I'm not a yapper. I pretend to be one. Okay. If you saw me at a party, I didn't know anybody. I'd stand in the corner. I'm just like, like wallpaper. Okay. So when my buddy invited me to make YouTube content with him, like, oh, I don't know about this. I don't know about this at all. Discomfort. Hey, what are we gonna do here? Now luckily for me, he was very generous, made me an offer I couldn't refuse. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do this thing. And it sucked for a long time. But you know, my obsessive mind was, what can— how can I improve? What's one or two things I can change to make this better for our audience? What can I do to get one more view, 10 more views, one more comment? I would just work on that obsessively, and eventually I discovered this other side, a passion I didn't know that was really there. I think I am living my greatest life because I've discovered my gift, and I'm able to combine all these things that I'm really fascinated in and the things I'm, I'm like good at, the things that I'm— I can make money on, and they're all are exactly the same thing. That's why I get to do is I get to teach, I get paid to teach. I think that's the best job in the world.

What would you tell someone who wants to figure out how to combine their passion and their mastery? How do you go find the thing you're both passionate about and actually can be good at?

We all go through different phases in life that there's, uh, convergent thinkers, or like there's one way to do something. There's divergent thinkers, like there's lots of ways to do something. And then there's these hybrids, and we can, we can be somewhere in the middle, but it's not often when you're 19 years old That's a mistake. I hear young people like, oh, I'm a polymath. I'm like, he barely has got diapers. Are you kidding me? There's no way. And you don't have multiple degrees. You haven't even done your first 10,000 hours, let alone your next 10,000 hours. So what usually happens is the first arc of our professional life, I think we do either what we were told was a good thing to do, or we found something and we played and we found that we're good at this thing. And then along that way, we become really good. We have some level of mastery. And what's cool is the tree trunk in which you build your core skills on gets wider and wider. It could support more branches now. So now you can explore something else and you keep exploring. So by the time you get into your late 30s, early 40s, I think you have maybe potentially 2 areas and they usually live very far apart. And this happens to a lot of creative people. There's something you do to get paid and there's a side hobby that you have. I say, here, so here's the interesting thing. You have two things that you do. What if they were the same? So you can combine those two things. It takes some creativity to find that, but most people aren't willing to entertain that idea at all. Yeah.

You do just have to make sure that you're going to work hard enough at the thing in order to become good at it. Yeah. I think. And it goes back to that original point you said in the very beginning, which is, are you underpaid or are you really underskilled? Right now. And if you're underskilled, let's make sure you don't just argue for more pay, because it'll actually be more valuable long term if you get up your skills as opposed to get up your pay in the moment. And I think that's the gift in that response. It would be a lot more popular on the internet if you just said, here's how to get your boss to pay you $100,000 more, but the lifetime skill accumulation is going to be what actually pays you more long term.

Yeah.

And so I thought that was a great response.

Can I ask you a question?

Yeah, please.

I, I, I wonder if you have a lot of people you know that run businesses that aren't doing as well as they could, and the one thing they need to be doing is the thing they're not doing.

Yes.

Okay, so they have the skill, they have some kind of system in place to bring in clients and do the work, but then they're stuck. I know a lot of people that are entrepreneurs And every one of them, if they were just to do this one thing, they would live in the land of milk and honey. But they don't. They just don't do what needs to be done.

Yeah.

What's your experience with, with that kind of stuff?

Well, I call it the rich owner versus poor owner mindset.

Mm-hmm.

And what I typically think, there's like, we, we, we say that there are basically 12 archetypes of entrepreneurs and every single entrepreneur has a different archetype that is part of the reason they're kind of successful, like whatever your success comes from, and also the reason you're not successful enough. Enough yet. And so one archetype might be the founder, which we associate as a good thing. This was probably your friend. The founder is somebody who builds what they want, but not what other people want to buy. And they build what they want, which is why they've innovated in some incredible things. But they have this bias inside of them about why they won't build what people want. You know, or another one is, is the giver, which is the entrepreneur who does, can, can carry every burden. And so they do. And so all of us have this archetype inside of us. I sort of think about them like business horoscopes. And once you read all of them, you go, oh God, that is me. I'm always underpricing, or I am always kind of coming up with this new thing that I want, but the market doesn't. And then you kind of have to do almost business therapy on it. Where do you think that comes from? You know, did you create something, one, that was once that was so traumatizing for you to create that somebody wanted to pay you for that has meant that you never want to do that again because you're trying to avoid that one situation. And there's usually like one moment, one instance, one really bad thing that happened. You know, do you do everything in your business because one time you didn't, the person who you gave it to almost bankrupted you because they made a huge bad decision? Now you're never going to do it again. And so I used to think that if we just gave tactics to business owners, they'd crush. And I was like, I can give you the private equity playbook. I'll tell you exactly what to do. We've done this with I mean, across my private equity companies now, hundreds of companies, and we follow it and it works. And that's why, you know, our companies double or triple every year. And it's not because we're so smart. I wish that was the case. It's just a playbook that's existed in finance for a long time. But the problem is, is that you will get in your own way as an entrepreneur if you don't see where your faults are.

What's your archetype?

My archetypal— it can change too. This isn't like moon and stars shit. I don't know how that stuff works.

It's not an actual horoscope thing.

Exactly. Hopefully somebody else could tell me how to figure that out in Austin. Mine is either the founder, which typically again means I want to do what I want to do. I don't care what the market wants. I got over that in finance, but then my next one actually became the closer. And the closer typically means, which is why I like all your sales stuff, I'm the best salesperson, so nobody else gets to sell. And I've really had to break myself of that habit. Which is, can I let other people be the front person? Can I let other people talk to the customer? Do I always have to know best? Can I not learn from them? And can I build real companies where a bunch of other people do this for me? And so, you know, if you think about it, like, you know, the giver, the closer, the founder, those are all really nice words. We like those words, but they have this like dark side to them too. What do you think you are? Do you think you have a bias as an entrepreneur?

I probably do. I'm sure I do. There is a cure to the closer. Yeah. Something I do all the time.

Tell me.

When you're good at doing things, the tendency is for you to do everything. Yeah. So I tell people I practice some form of intentional incompetence.

Yeah.

Okay. I could do it, but I'm not gonna do it. Somebody else do this. And what's really cool is when, when you work with people, whether they work for you or whatever, they're around you, they wanna serve, they wanna help, they wanna build something and strip them of that ability if you just start doing everything. And the weird consequence is you make them feel really bad about themselves. In design situation, if somebody's designing something, oh, get out of the way, let me just do this, I'll show you. You know, you think, oh, it's like a real lesson for them. Their lesson is, I suck, I'll never be this good. And so every time I'm given an assignment, I'm gonna do a little bit less because I don't want to be disappointed because my stuff never gets picked. It's never good enough for the boss. And so you have to just be like, I don't know how to do anything, can you do this for me? And then they do it and you're like, wow, and they feel great. And then they get to grow and like, I'm contributing to this company. The way you need to do this, you need to take good care of them, and you also then need to use that free time that you have to do something that only you can do. Yeah. So in terms of my archetype, I, I don't know what it is, but I have probably symptoms of every single one that you, you've talked about.

Yeah, you know, I think it's interesting. I, I have found with entrepreneurs that, like, there's a saying that, you know, becoming an entrepreneur is part of a trauma response, which always makes me chuckle. And I understand that in some way, but I don't think it has to actually be miserable. I think you can really enjoy— I enjoy it. I know.

I love it.

Thank you. I'm glad you said that because I think it's become cool to say that it has to be miserable. And when we put these people on pedestals who are kind of miserable, probably through nothing to do with entrepreneurship, actually just deeper-seated things. Yeah. Then we start to think that that is the only way to get where we want to go.

Right.

And I love your work because it's really none of that. You know, it's a lot of do the things that you feel like you are inclined to do and thinking about things like No, don't do networking if you hate networking. In fact, you don't even like networking. It's like, stop doing that and start doing something you might like, like help people instead. And so I think we need to like raise up more entrepreneurial voices like that to have totally unique businesses where you do say no to a lot of things you don't like. Yeah. And you can still make a ton of money doing that.

Yeah.

Fact, you know, so maybe I have like two things I want to end on. Let's talk about the other reason why I think we people please and we lower price and we don't sell as well and we have all of these entrepreneurial problems is haters. We're scared not in just pleasing people, but it's scary to think about what if people just not only don't like you, but they come at you. And so I'm curious, like, was there ever a moment for you where somebody said something really tough that stuck with you? And what do you do when somebody does hate on you? How do you push through that?

Now, when it comes to the trolls, I have a pretty good sense of self. In fact, I tell people, um, you know, the little story here, which is I remember one time I was showing my wife because I was starting to make content. Somebody wrote like, Chris, I'm your number one fan. She goes, no, no, she's not, or he's not. I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, I'm your number one fan. I'm like, well, that's— babe, I didn't know. I mean, gosh, you know, get out of here. And then I said to her in my smarmy way or whatever, you're not my number one fan. She goes, no, I'm my own number one fan. And she's like, God, this guy loves himself. And we got a whole conversation about that. I said, I do love myself. I have to be my own number one fan because a person who doesn't love themselves is hard to love. Okay, so let that sink. So when people make negative comments, I'm like, great, I love you too. I love the trolls. They make me think harder. I think a troll is someone who actually wants to like your content, but for some reason their self-story is challenged because you're saying something that would wreck their world. And I want to understand, like, how do I communicate to you better so that I can bring you to this party? Because I want to include you. You bring so much fire and venom. It helps me make more content. It gives me clarity on where I can improve. And if it says like, I want to punch your face, that's not— that's a different kind of level. That's just hate. Or like, oh, you're an idiot. I'm like, okay, cool. There's no more information to extract from that. But they're like, you know, no one can apply this because the world doesn't— I can work with that. I can definitely work with that. And that gives me an idea for a new piece of content. Oftentimes our most viewed content is because I said something that struck a nerve, either because I knew, because they told me, or I just had a sense like, okay, there's going to be a fight. And people love us fighting because it allows us to find a piece of truth. I had heard earlier on my European tour, another speaker say, an opinion that everyone agrees with is not an opinion. So in this world, when it's the sea of same or the sea of lame, You have to figure out a way to say something that people are not going to be 100% in agreement with. Not to do it to provoke them, but because you finally found something to say that's worth listening to.

So good. Yeah, I remember listening to another speaker say that the truth is like a tuning fork. When you don't hear it— when, when you hear it, you don't just hear it, you feel it, you know? And you know how you get the little goosebumps when you hear the truth? But I always thought that was incomplete because it's not just— if it was just truth, I don't feel tuning fork when I say this is a white chandelier. It has to be like when it's a deep truth or an uncovered truth or an uncomfortable truth. Then I do get the goosebumps and I think, oof, that's tough, but it's actually true. And so there is something, you know, we were talking in the beginning about corporations and I often wonder why they partner with creatives or creators, but then they want to pull it back to come all the way to their brand. And, and we were talking about how they have to be careful of risk. And I think that's true. Budweiser is a great example of that. But simultaneously, I think you got to be careful about stripping the soul out of things. And in our society today, I'd be curious your take, but you come to Europe and it's just been around a lot longer and there's a lot less commercial strips inside of the city center and there's a lot more rules about how you can build and what, what companies can go in. And so there's more what I would call soul, at least differentiation. And I'm curious if somebody out there right now is like, I want to infuse a little soul into my personal brand. I want to infuse a little uniqueness. What are the things that you're like, here are a few thoughts or tips for somebody who doesn't want to die in the sea of sameness. Could be aesthetic or it could be verbal or it could be written.

Number one, the easiest thing that you can do to insert a little soul is to say, What are clichés that everyone in my space is already saying? And just make a long list. What are phrases, expressions? And then what you do, and this is like from advertising copywriting, take a common phrase, a cliché, and then do something with it. So you'll take a phrase and you just flip it a little bit. So that expression, here's an example, it's from The Economist magazine, some of the best copywriting in the world. Something like the expression of great minds think alike. We've all heard it. If I said it, you're like, yeah, and then what? So they just took that expression, changed it just a little bit by changing the order of the words. Great minds like to think. And it's enough for you to be like, what? And years before he was involved in politics, they had this line that says Trump Donald. Beat the man at his game. Because this is a magazine for tycoons and entrepreneurs and intellectuals. So they had so many lines in there. I'm like, wow. So find what the clichés are, look at them, stare at them, and play with them. Stretch them, bend them, change the order, uh, change the word, make it rhyme with something else. And then you now have an asset that people will then refer to you. And when we're building brands, we don't just think about building a brand, we build worlds. The more assets that you have to play with, not just words and ideas, but visual systems, it allows you to be easily identified, to stand apart from your competitors, but it also allows for beautiful collaborations. And I think about this: when Marvel and DC do a crossover, all the fans from both sides are so excited because they get to answer the question, could Superman beat this other person, Thor, right? It's because Superman has a rich history, a visual language, and a, and a, an arc that we understand. And then Thor has something different on Marvel. And when they get together, like, wow, what's gonna happen? When Louis Vuitton collaborated with Supreme, Supreme had that future bold italic typeface, had the red, that skate culture that had a lot of cachet with just being cool. They had this idea of doing a drop and never doing it again. Louis Vuitton has this rich heritage of bags and, and trunks and things like that, and also high fashion. When the two got together, it made for a beautiful collaboration because Louis Vuitton would not use red. They would not make a case for a skateboard deck, and they did all this together. And to this day, their collaboration sells used for more than the things that you can buy new from Louis Vuitton. That's wild to me. It's enduring because it's a cool collab. It happened once, it's gone. If you can find it, find it. So I wanted to buy this trench coat that was an LV Supreme collab. It was $9,000. I'm like, I don't like it that much. I like it a lot though.

Well, it's, it's interesting because I also think it's creatively liberating in a lot of ways. You don't have to sit alone in a room and come up with an independent idea that's never been done before. And in fact, you know, a lot of the times with my team, I'm like, what, why are you coming up with a completely new idea out of nothing to start? And in some ways, this is a little controversial. But I'm not even sure you should be allowed to do that if you're not good yet. Like, my point to them is often it's first you want to imitate, then you iterate, then you innovate. And so, you know, you don't— you could, I suppose, learn to draw having never drawn anything before and then just think that I'm good at drawing because I've drawn this thing and it's amorphous. But, but typically if you want to learn to draw, you learn to draw lots of different types, you learn to master those varying skills, and then you can come up with something completely unique because you've got this overlap. And of course it's not always true, but I do find that sometimes people get so confused about where to start with creative because they don't realize that you can play with what's already been existence and almost everybody does.

Yeah. There's one other thing I wanna share with you about the visual part. I wanna make sure that when somebody sees me, they can recognize me really fast. Mm-hmm. You know, there, there's, it is probably borderline racist to say this, but for a lot of Caucasians, they all, all Asians look the same. Right? And there's a joke about this. Like, white people can have blonde hair, brown hair, black hair. They can have blue eyes, green eyes, all colors and all shapes and sizes. And the rest of the world, all the people of color, have one color. Dark hair and dark eyes. And so it's harder to tell us apart. So I want to make sure if you're like, is that Chris? Yes, it is me. And there's a little story here. Years ago, much smaller following, I was in Toronto in December, I believe. It was colder than heck. I am bundled up like you cannot believe. Long coat, gloves, scarf, like my hat, and just basically about this much of my face was visible. I'm walking across the street, crosswalk, and somebody is walking the other way, slows down and turns back and follows me across the way. It's like, are you Chris? I'm like, I'm like, yes, I am. I'm like, how can you tell? It's like, I could just tell, bro. I can just tell. So here's the power of personal branding. If I were to take off my glasses and leave it on the table and somebody saw the glasses, would they know that's me if I took the hat off? And I start to strip down the layers. I'm not at that level, but there are people who are at that level. If you saw a glitter glove on this, you would know it's Michael Jackson. You would just know. And like, if we were to put Gandhi's glasses on the table, you would just know it's Gandhi.

Seth Godin's yellow vest.

Seth Godin's— yeah, they all have something. And this is why, to kind of put a bookend on it, different is better than better.

To be different.

Cuz different is recognized, different is remembered, and oftentimes different is what creates brand.

Christo, thank you so much. This was amazing.

Thanks, Codie Sanchez.

Uh, I like to follow you on YouTube and Instagram, but where, what's your favorite platform for people to follow you?

Probably Instagram. I'm trying to grow that. It's super hard these days. And also LinkedIn.

Ah, fun. Okay, great.

Yeah. Trying to get to a million on LinkedIn.

I like it. All right, then let's try LinkedIn today.

Okay.

All right. Thanks, my friend.

Thank you.