Unlocking the Power of Personal Branding: Crafting Your Digital Identity with Branding Expert

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there.

What do I want to be known for? That's a really hard question. I refer to content as brand crumbs. Creating content is very difficult if you're for anyone or everyone. You're for no one. People are more interested in seeing themselves in your story. They're doing the right things in the wrong order. We have rock bottom moments. We are impacted by tragedy around us. We change as people I like went broke. You can pull the wool over people's eyes. You're the one judging yourself, thinking that they actually care that much about you. The thing that people chase after the most.

Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. In every episode I bring you an inspiring leader or expert to help you lead your life and business on purpose. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show. Do you have a personal brand? If you don't, you need to get one. It doesn't matter if you're an entrepreneur or if you're working for an organization. Wherever you're at in life, you need a personal brand and in fact you have one. If you've got anything online, that's your digital reputation. So whether you are on LinkedIn looking for a job or you're hiring for someone, whether you're on Tinder, if you're single doing that thing, you've got an online thumbprint, right? So let's talk about what your personal brand looks like today. I've got global expert on personal branding, Ryan Folland in the room, so I hope you enjoy it. Sit back and enjoy the show. Ryan. A huge welcome to the Lead On Purpose podcast.

Ahoy. It's good to be here.

Oh, I'm so glad you're here and I love that you addressed me with Ahoy. I think there must be a bit of a sailing fanatic in there somewhere.

Well, it's good guess and actually this is my first sort of really simple point that I can make here when it comes to personal branding is that identify like your greeting. Because I say ahoy in my emails, I say ahoy in my teams, I say ahoy in my texts, I say ahoy. And with that one single word, I'm helping people get to know what I like to do. And so if you say howdy or what's up or yo or hey, like, the words you choose to use are completely.

A way to help people get to know you. And so the first word can be actually pretty powerful. So don't waste it with an, um. Yeah, different story.

Yeah, really powerful. Well, I'm excited to talk about personal branding. Why is that? Because I firmly believe no matter where you're at, whether you work for an organization, you work 9 to 5, you run your own business. Business. One thing that we've all got to be doing right now is building our personal brand and our digital reputation, because that's going to have massive value long term. So let's jump right into personal branding. What do you believe a personal brand is?

I believe it's the intersection between what you want to be known for and what somebody sees you as. I believe that we all have a personal brand. If we don't feel like we do or we don't say that we do, it just means that you are not actively participating in your brand narrative. Now, for some people who are just turned off by the personal brand phrase in general, you actually said a key word there, which is your reputation. And so what is your rep? Do you have a reputation? Well, yes. It's how you show up. If nobody's met you before, they'll search for you online and they'll find a digital representation of your.

Of how you show up. And so oftentimes, the hardest part of anything is starting yet. If people can understand that, they have already started, it's just a matter of picking up where they left off.

Sometimes that is even hard to do because you're like, I'm so far behind. But I always remind myself of the Chinese proverb that the best time to plant a personal brand. So tree 25 years ago, the second best time to plant a brand is today. And so it's just as simple as making a conscious decision of thinking about actually reflecting and stopping for a moment and thinking like, what do I want to be known for? And it's not something where you're like, well, I'd love to be known for being an astronaut and I've never been to space before, so I'm an Astronaut, like, it's not that I look at. What you want to be known for is three common threads. One is how you show up from a personality standpoint. And as you get to know me, I'm like, high energy from you ask people like, wow, Ryan's like, his personality is blank right there. Then professionally, we have to decide how we want to show up. And the final sort of triad is what you like to do for fun. Because believe it or not, some of the most successful business negotiations, the most successful calls, the most effective way to close or to sell is to build a relationship. And that means talking about, not business. I always start my meetings like, you know, the small talk is actually really big. And so it's important for you to have things that you can talk about that are not work. So to recap, you already have a brand. You might just not be participating in the narrative. And it can be as simple as how you want to be known, personality wise, how you want to be known professionally and then how you want to be known for what you're doing when you're not working.

That's so powerful and so succinct. And when I think about that, whether it's your Tinder dating profile for those singles out there, that's your personal brand for those that are, let's say, medical professionalists and you're a specialist, let's take a skin specialist. If I was going to try and figure out who do I want to go to, I will literally jump online, Google them, see who comes up, who doesn't come up, I'll look at their LinkedIn, I'll look at, maybe if they have content, I'll go, I like that personality. I want to go to see that specialist. So I think no matter what industry we're in, actually we're all, you know, whether it's the dating industry, whether it's in the medical professional industry, whether it's just showing up in life and business, we've all got a personal brand and if we don't actually have one, let's say we don't have anything online, there's no nothing. To me, that's red flag. I'm like, I don't want to do business with someone.

Well, actually, I'll share with you that if you have zero footprint online, you still have a footprint. It's the fact that you're not there and people will make an assumption based on that.

What are you hiding?

The reality is you can't not communicate. If you decide to not communicate, people will evaluate and size you up for somebody who's not sane, then they might jump to their own conclusions. I think that what is important to distinguish here too, you mentioned a few specialties as far as like a physician or somebody who's really specialized in certain areas. I believe that it's just as important for people who are in career tracks or who are in internships or who are not looking to start their own business, not looking to be an influencer, not looking to write a book, but for them to build their reputation internally to help them move to the next level, to help them better establish relationships. And there's an age old idiom that says people want to do business with those who they know like and trust. That's it. We could talk forever about that. But I think we all understand that. And the challenge is if you don't have anything online that lets people get to know you or even like from a standard zoom background. Like I see you've got a plant, so I'm going to make an assumption that you like outdoors. I see that you've got books. I see that you're a color coordinator with the books. I see that you've got a nice microphone. I see that you're standing up, I see that you're wearing a black shirt. I see that there's other stuff behind you. Like I see that you're well lit, I see that you have glasses, I see that you're well, I see all these things. Whether you're intentionally bringing them forward or not. You're social signaling. And so your ability to help me get to know you is your ability to be relatable, is your ability to get past a biological barrier. And that is your mammalian brain, the croc brain. Because the reality is that like your stem brain is set up so that you don't die. That's a total function. And if you perceive someone as a threat, or if you perceive somebody as a bear or some sort of like non connected calmness, then you're going to be resistant to have that connection. There's going to be a hesitancy. Your brain is instinctively like going to put off. So like imagine being on zoom with somebody when they're off camera and they're literally like, okay, well you know, my camera's off. Like it doesn't give you anything. But now you're going to pick up on the tone of voice. Now you're going to take up in my annotation and my speed and make these judgments. As human creatures, we're constantly scanning and searching these micro movements and physical bodies to see if we're being attacked by a bear or like, I'm friendly. So building a brand in its simplest terms is helping people to get to know you. And if you think of your friends and your family and your loved ones and your people who you've spent so much time with, they know who you are. And there's a good chance that based on what they know, they like you and they want to continue to hang out with you. If they got to know you and maybe politically you're on different sides, or maybe they got to know you and just your values, aren't you the same? Or maybe they got to know you and you really weren't trustworthy or you screwed somebody over. You have to get to know somebody in order to actually have a baseline of whether you like them or not. And if you like them based on knowing them, that sets the foundation for trust. And you can't download that. So the best thing you could do is upload things about yourself to help people get to know you. And if they like your content, if they vibe with you, if they have the same type of energy. And sometimes you meet people like, this is great. Other times you're like, we're definitely cut from a different feather. And that's cool. It's cool that maybe we'll skip lunch next week and just be mutual friends. But it's all about helping people get to know you. And I think that's easy to understand. But where I see people struggle the most is, is at the start. Because, let's face it, you can go to ChatGPT right now and say, how do I build a personal brand? You can go to Claude, wait till Gemini comes. Everything, the information is there, but usually the clients that I'm able to help the most, they're doing the right things so they don't get traction. And that's why they come to somebody for help, whether it's you or me or read a book or scour the self help. But I find it's not that they're doing the wrong things, it's that they're doing the right things in the wrong order.

And that I think is interesting because, I mean, we've all done it in different ways. Like, I tried to build a brand, and I wrote 50 blogs over a summer, and I thought I knew what I was doing. There's nothing wrong with writing blogs, but I didn't even have a personal website. There was no way for me to track that. There was no way for me to understand. And so as Humans, we invest our time into putting ourselves out there and doing a LinkedIn post and writing a blog or seeking out to be or be a guest on a podcast, maybe even starting your own podcast. But the reality is, if you do the right things in the wrong order, you won't make it to the other side of the pool and you'll get tired and then you'll end up going back.

Well, sorry to interrupt. I'm really excited to talk about that. So let's talk firstly about the wrong order and then let's address what the right order might look like. So when people do the right things in the wrong order, what does that look like?

Hey, James here. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Carolinejlochlan.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes.

It looks like I listen to a podcast and I want to start my personal brand. So I'm going to start blogging and I'm going to write a blog. And then it's like, okay, well are you going to write a blog every way, every month? Every week? Is this the only blog you've done? I oftentimes ask people like, oh, so you're serious about a brand? Great. When was the last time you published an article? When was the last time you published a video? When was the last time that you actually posted or engaged? And it's like, people like the right steps in the wrong order. Be creating content with no plan or creating content about horseback riding and then creating content about laser surgery and then creating content about five ways to take care of your dog. Like, content for the sake of content doesn't necessarily help people understand what you should be known for. And to jump to your second question, the right thing to do in the right order is to start at the start and just reflect and be like, what do I want to be known for? Like, what is my 5 year goal? What is my 10 year goal? What do I enjoy doing? What do I want to spend my time with what are the kind of people I want to work with? What's the kind of impact that I want to make? What is the type of content I like to create? Do I like the idea of videos or do I actually like videos? Do I like the idea of writing or do I. Am I intimidated by it? Because I refer to content as brand crumbs. And I say that for a reason. Because just like Hansel and Gretel, like, it works to some extent, it leaves the trail, but it gets eaten up or it just gets dissipated into the. Into the universe. So just because you create one blog or tweet one time or Facebook one time live, it, like, fades away. So you have to drop these little brand crumbs. Also, because we change as people. We find new passions, we have rock bottom moments. We are impacted by tragedy around us. And to look at a brand as something that is, like, evolving because you get to write the next scene is important. But if you don't know the title of the play, if you don't, if you haven't established the main characters, then you're really just like, it's a lot of activity. But it doesn't necessarily mean that somebody's gonna Google you and have clarity on what you're trying to do. And if you. If you really just like, like reflect or like, I have an exercise where you ask other people, how would you describe me? You start finding out sort of what information and data is out there, and then you can use that and be like, oh, I want to be known as that, but not that. And I kind of like that. So then based on sort of what people already see in you, you can pick and choose the personality trait, the actual professional trait, and what you like to do for fun. And if you keep it to that, then, like, that's an entry point. It doesn't mean that I don't like to skateboard, and I don't like to do all, like, I'm going lobster diving tonight. I love to scuba dive, but I don't talk about scuba diving as much as I talk about sailing. Because for me, sailing is like that entry point. And then once they understand that I'm hunting lobster, it makes sense. And then when I talk about spending time on the ocean. So you have to have that, like, the starting point. And that's the hardest thing to do, is be like, what do I want to be known for? From a personality standpoint, that's a really hard question to evaluate. So the right thing is to really understand, like, sharpen your ax and Understand what you want to do and just go, well, don't go cut down trees, but go chop some content up.

That's amazing. Thank you for that. And you know, I think about personal brand, we've all got one. Even if we don't have one, that says something about us. So we do have one. So we got started, we're building our personal brand. Where do we go next? Does that help us with our next job? Does that help us connect with potential customers? What's the need for it right now in this time and age?

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In this time and age.

So I might go back to my, to my sailing analogy here, but I just see a series of ships. So if we understand that content helps people get to know you and over time they can like you and that might lead to trust. Well, let's say in a, in an environment where you're building some sort of connection, whether it's with a client or with a co worker or across a silo or with new patients that you're trying to reach.

At the end of the day, you're trying to build relationships, but it doesn't always start like that. Maybe there's some sort of a partnership or maybe it starts as a friendship. And then maybe if it works with no money, maybe you can propose a sponsorship, something that has money with it. So your ability to communicate, this also is your ability to have, like, showmanship. And at the end of the day, if you want to win a champion ship, there's work involved. And I can't help but think of, like, you Know, if you're going to build a boat for the water, there's so many things you have to think through and get prepared and test it and launch it. I'll break it down into. In my book, ditch the actual. I talk about eight steps to doing this and even diluting that a little bit more. It's four steps, four V's. First, figure out your vision, which is what we've talked about here, which is, where do you want to go? What do you want to be known for? Like, have that vision first. Because if you don't know where you're going, how are you going to get there? I have this personal branding strategy worksheet. I have clients who want to work with me. Like, work through. And it says, like.

What do you want to do? Where do you want to be published? To your question, like, why should we? It's up to you. Like, if you can determine that you want a higher paying job or you want to build your own business. Like, all of those things are achievable by being known for somebody that ends up having domain expertise in that area, that consistently is seen as an authority in that area that's edified by other people out there saying, you should talk to this person. And that's the cascading. So once you know your vision, then you focus on your voice. And voice, to me, represents how you share your thoughts. Now, you can create a voice through podcasting, you can create a voice through imagery. I draw a lot of stick figures. You can create a voice through writing, you can create a voice through live streaming, which is a combination of all of those. And so I believe that you have to understand what, what your voice is and how you like to use it. Some people don't like to be in front of camera. Yeah, okay. Some people hate the sound of their voice. Some people are miserable writing. Even with ChatGPT, they find it frustrating because they don't find their authentic voice in there. But I say, start with what you enjoy. And so I don't know if you know far away, but there's a commercial with a particular beer brand and it's the most interesting man in the world. And he says, I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I drink Dos Equis. That's it. Like, he's the most interesting man in the world. And he's like, gray bearded and he's kind of stoic and he's just like, looks like he's a boss. I don't always drink blank, but when I do, it's Dos Equis.

I love it.

So the question for you would be, I don't always create content, but when I do, I would.

Like, if something amazing happened that you wanted to share, like a big life lesson, would you tell people in person? Would you want to write about it? Would you want to create an artistic, I don't know, vision board around it? Would you, like, once you start to figure out your default comfort in sharing your voice, technology can spin it all the other way. So you can literally. There are a lot of successful YouTube channels right now that are faceless. They're using avatars, okay? But if you write a blog, then that can be turned into a prompt that outputs an AI generated video. If you make a video, you can transcribe it. You can snip into little clips. So people often make a mistake of trying to, like, do it all. And it's. Creating content is very difficult. So find a type of content that you enjoy. Like, I love to write. I love to journal. Okay, well, then, like, try to write something, and once you get in that rhythm, you know your vision and now you have your voice. I also suggest not having more than three lanes, even if you have more. Right? So take your professionalism, and what do you want to be known for? So, for me, I want to be known as a speaker, and I am, and my content supports that. And I have a podcast called the World of Speakers, and I speak a lot. Then I want to be known as somebody who helps startups. And my swing zone is in core messaging, so I have a podcast around that. I write about that all the time. And then, you know, at the end of the day, from an expertise, I really feel like people need to ditch the act. And that is a content lane around authenticity. So if you think about the content that I create, if you Google me, you'll find all this stuff and you'll be like, whoa, there he's talking about branding again. Oh, there he is talking about speaking again. Oh, there he is talking about authenticity again. And you do that for 10 years a row. 10 years in a row. And, like, now you actually have volume. And so it's vision, voice, and then volume. And when I say volume, it doesn't mean throw as much mud up on the wall to see where it sticks. It's about if you have a vision and you understand your voice, you probably know your audience, or you should. And one of the first things you said to me as we met here today in our small talk, you told me about your audience, which is super relevant for me. And you know your audience, and that's why you have traction, because you're not for everybody. If you're for anyone or everyone, you're for no one. And so you are a prime example of understanding that vision of who you're in front of, the voice of people who want to hear it. And then when it comes to volume, it's about syndicating your content. So your blog article also feeds your social media. And when you draw a stick figure, maybe you cross promote it. And then when you're on a podcast, maybe you. So it's like it becomes where you can have these core pillars of content around your lanes, and I can literally talk about all those lanes until I'm blue in the face. And so volume comes only after you've established your voice and you know your vision. And the final V, which is the thing that people chase after the most, but it's the thing that they get after they actually stop focusing on it, is validation.

And 10 years ago, I was a blip on the radar. No website, no Facebook, no Instagram, nothing, right? This sort of, this sort of personality archetype that we talked about. I made a conscious decision to build a brand, stumbled through it, learned the process, and eventually have been featured in Forbes. I've actually written for Forbes. I've been an entrepreneur multiple times, Inc. Multiple times. Business journal, newspapers, international trade publications. I've given four TED talks, four of them. And I've spoken around the world. And I have a published book. I have other books I'm creating. I have three podcasts, two with 100 plus episodes. I had a live radio show for three years and I just got notified that one of my podcasts got listed as number 55 in the all time indie marketing category. Subcategory something, right? Like, who cares? But like I wasn't out there chasing it. I just am creating content. People are noticing. I've been named an influencer. I've been named a top branding expert. That's validation. That's just because you keep showing up and you keep creating content. So vision, voice, volume, and then validation.

That's amazing.

That's a simple formula that you just rinse and repeat. And if you, if you integrate it into your habits, that's how you can make it sustainable. Or you hire somebody to help you out. Like, because if you're a working professional or you're an entrepreneur, you don't have time, but you have these stories and you have this content. So sometimes my clients, they'll just tell me the stories. And we will help to create the content in their voice because that's, that's sometimes the hardest part. You have stories for days, you have lessons for days. But hiring somebody to package it and help you share, I think is a key part. And I will always, I will always, always, always suggest you learn how to do it before you hire for it. So I work with people for three months and I basically share with them all of these steps and let them know. And then if they want to continue, they can have me help them or they can hire a virtual assistant or they can work with another coach. But I really feel like if you're going to hire somebody, a virtual assistant or somebody who's a content creator, you need to have a certain proficiency so that you can help to guide them, because they'll show up, they'll be like, what do you want me to do? And they're like, oh, wait, we need to write an article. Okay, I'm ready. So again, this idea of learning these platforms and having an interest in understanding the basics, once you get it and you got your content lanes, then it's just about creating. There's a whole set of tools of creating that volume. I feel like I was talking a lot there, so I'm going to stop for a second.

Honestly, Ryan, that's amazing. That framework, to me, it really resonates within terms of. As you were sharing it, I'm reflecting back on my journey and going, oh, yeah, I remember that time when I didn't really know what I wanted to talk about. And I wanted to talk about fatherhood and I wanted to talk about leadership and memberships and all these things. I had like 10 things I wanted to talk about and no traction, that I had no time to create any voice.

Well, you probably created just a little bit of traction in each one of them, right? Which is overall net nothing. But when you stack them all, it's that classic where you have a circle with little arrows everywhere and then you take the same distance arrows and stack them on top of each other. And that's how you go places.

Makes a big difference. And the one thing I want to talk about, ditch the actual. To me, when I hear that, it's like, hey, enough of the bullshit. Who's the real you? And when people are building personal brand, I can see it sometimes with people that I know going, hey, I see what you're doing online, but I know you, that's not you at all. And I'd love to see the real you online and your digital reputation. So how Important is it to ditch the act and how do we do that authentically and still just keep moving forward?

So I think it is, at least for me personally, the most important piece of the puzzle for a long game. And anybody can have a flash in the pan. And there are people who rent Ferraris and pretend they're theirs and might get certain traction until they're sort of found out. And then it's a backhaul and then it's a. Like, there's a lot of case studies in people who have really faked it to make it. And sure, to some extent, you can pull the wool over people's eyes. You can be deceitful, you can be disingenuous, you can be dishonest, and you can maybe make certain gains while still burning people. That's more of a, like a value that you have or don't have, or you get sucked into that. I will say I got sucked into that. I had bad mentors. I had a mentor who said, no matter whether you can afford it or not, you need to buy the most expensive looking car that you can. And I bought a Rimini red range Rover with 22 inch Rimini Red rims. And we were driving around in suits and I could not afford it. In this process, I, like, went broke. I extended myself because I was told that if you look the part, everything else will come. But 2008 came and wiped everything out. I lost my house, my car, literally filed for bankruptcy. And I was. I had to borrow money from my parents to file, and so I had to ship the whole packet myself. And there's these moments where you're like, wow, how did I get here? Number two, am I really putting this in the mail? And this is like, you know, you don't. You don't get chances. Like, this is it. It's a very hard pill to swallow. Just emotionally going through that from, like, from pretending outwardly that things are all right and being afraid to tell anyone that things are so wrong. Two weeks later, I got that package returned to me. And I was surprised at the speed of the government, but it was actually the speed of the post office because I was 32 cents short on my postage. I shit you not. So I had my bankruptcy paperwork mailed back to me because I was 32 cents short. And I was like, I'm getting. I'm getting like the goose ones now. I was like, maybe this wasn't meant to be. And then I started to sort of share with people that I was not in a good spot. And you know what they did? They wanted to help me. And before, they didn't think that I needed help. And this is where I just want to speak to people who are at that junction and they're like, I want to build a brand, but I don't feel like I have anything worthwhile. I haven't gotten the accolades. I don't want to start from zero. I want to put on my best face because that's what everybody else looks like. I will tell you, people are not as concerned or less concerned or actually don't even care about your story of success and the successes that you have. In fact, if you present yourself as too successful, you become intimidating. And then you won't know it, but they'll be resentful. And they're not really, like, they're not really into it because you've created this divide. People are more interested in seeing themselves in your story. And so to ditch the act is, yeah, sure, to be the real you. But let's face it, like, we're constantly changing. That's a hard thing to do. We're emotional creatures. Everybody's going through something. My dad's got bad health, and I'm maybe a little bit more of a wreck those months than when things are great. But your ability to reflect and be like, you know what? This is what I want to be known for. This is what I love to do. This is who I'm at the core. These are my values. This is like what I'm all about. And this is what I'm having struggles with. And this is what I want to be. And I need help because I'm learning this. We're afraid people will judge you. You're the one judging yourself, thinking that they actually care that much about you when they're just caring about themselves. And any comments, they're just sort of feeding into what you're trying to do when at the end of the day, ditching the act is just being real with where you're at, which allows for people to help and to support. And imagine the post, it's like, oh, successful this. And, oh, I got an award for this. You look at the comments on that and it's like, oh, great, Yay. Fire this. Instead of saying, hey, this has been a really tough week, both personally and professionally, and I'm trying to keep myself motivated. And it's not. It's not the easiest, but I got to the gym today. You got it. You can do it. Like. Like, I'm here to help, support. Like, there's a Whole different vibe of including people. When you're not pretending like everything is perfect. Why do you think people are fine? It's a fine balance though, because you can overshare. You can be like an emotional wreck, and people are like, I don't want to deal with that. So I'm not saying that. In the book, I outline five levels of ditching the act because there are actual.

There really are like, levels. And the first.

Something weird here. Can you hear me?

Okay, you're back now. Yeah.

We're good.

That's perfect.

So the, the first level is just like silly, stupid stuff that happens. You spill water on yourself or you're literally like tired or didn't get good sleep. And people ask us, all the people give us a chance to ditch the act all the time. They go, how are you doing? And typically you're like, oh, I'm good, but you're not really good, or, oh, things are great. They're not really great. Oh, the holidays, awesome. When, like, they're not great. Imagine for a second somebody says, hey, how are you doing? You're like, you know, I'm exhausted because I didn't get to bed until late last night. I was redecorating the tree because we're hosting Christmas Eve. My wife's a little stressed out about it, and we actually had to get up for yoga scope this morning at 5:45. So I'm exhausted now. In that story, you know that I have a wife, you know that I work out, you know that I get tired, you know that I'm not invincible. You know that I'm all these little things. And you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't get that good asleep either too. And wait, did you say you took all the things off your ornaments and you redid your tree? Oh my gosh, I totally can understand that. It's like all of these ways to connect. So the idea of ditching the act at the testing level is to understand that somebody's got to go first.

And parenthood, fatherhood is not always great. Imagine sharing the stories of when things weren't great. And this is where I'll answer your question about how do we do this authentically? You tell stories that have lessons. That's it. Because it's your story. And when you tell a story of something that happened, usually it's a story where things either went wrong or there's something that was learned. You share the lesson that you've had from it, why it's relevant to your audience. And that is Authentic thought leadership. It is literally like a ship that has a sail with your experience and a sale with your expertise. And it's a combination.

By sharing your experiences, your content is unique. By sharing your experiences, that content reinforces who you are. By sharing the good, bad and ugly combined, it helps people understand your experience. And experience is what you get just after you need it. And so to be an expert isn't, I'm a self proclaimed expert. To be an expert means you have enough experience.

That you've learned enough that you can help people skip over the stuff that went wrong and learn from your mistakes. And that is like the essence of education. And why someone would learn is because you not that you have expertise, but that you have experience. And if you want to create a compelling podcast, get people to tell stories. In all of my podcasts, the first question I ask is tell me a story that shaped you. And it's fascinating to hear these stories. And then you're like, oh, I totally get. And that's why you are who you are is because of that. Wow, I get it now. And I get to know you and you're relatable and you're humble and the lessons are uniquely yours to share with me. And in the final cap here, and I want to know your thoughts, I was listening to Adam Grant, who's an amazing author and kind of a quirky dude, and he was asked about this idea of sort of self promotion because sometimes it feels icky, like, sure, I'm fine if Forbes want to feature me, but I don't want to go chase down a bunch of small articles and tell people that I'm worth newsworthy and stuff. He said there's a difference between self promotion, look at me, look at me, look at me. And idea promotion.

And man, that guy has a lot of amazing ideas. And so if you're passionate about your ideas, if you're passionate about your experience, if you're passionate about sharing information that you've learned, share the hell out of it. It just happens that you're part of it. But be proud about sharing information that's going to help other people. When it's tied in with your story, people get to know you. If they like you, cool. If not, then you've eliminated them and that's okay. And then eventually, when people trust you, you will pay them for services.

Yeah, that's incredible.

Accept their podcast. You will do that kind of stuff.

I love that idea of taking the spotlight off your face and putting it onto your ip, your idea, your thought leadership and Shining the light on that and elevating that because you can be proud of that and that actually delivers a message and impacts people as opposed to hey, I've done this or I've done that. And Adam Grant, you're right. Big fan of Adam's as well and what he does around the organizational culture and big incredible thought leader. So thanks for sharing that. And if people want to take the next step, there might be some solopreneurs, there might be some entrepreneurs, there might be people who want to look at developing their personal brand within their industry. They don't have their own business, but they want to build their industry brand. How can they connect with you? What's step one in terms of working with you?

For some reason I couldn't hear that audio. I'm going to connect to my.

See if.

I don't know what happened to the. The audio. I can't hear you anymore.

Can you hear me now?

Me though, right?

I hear you.

Definitely, yeah.

On my speaker. Default MacBook.

Any better?

Oh, there we go. I don't know what happened.

Okay, cool. Magic. That's awesome. Do you want me to ask where did it cut off? Did you hear a bit about Adam Grant or did that all go?

I talked about Adam Grant. I didn't hear your reply.

Okay, cool. I'll start from there again. Look, I have to 100% agree and taking the spotlight off ourselves, our face and putting it onto our ip, our idea, our thought leadership, that's genius because you can really elevate that and be proud of that without going, hey, look at me. And you know, Adam Grant, I agree 100% like one of the best thought leaders globally, no matter who I'm talking to. South Africa, New Zealand, uk. Adam's name comes up. So he's a genius at promoting the idea and he's of course directly attached to the great idea. Now for the person who wants to perhaps take the next step in personal brand, they maybe haven't started thinking about it or maybe they've just started. Look, there'll be people who are entrepreneurs. There will be people who work for an organization but are very specified within an industry and they want to elevate their reputation and personal brand within an industry. What's the next step in terms of working with you, Ryan? Where might they start? Would best place be? Get the book, ditch the act. I'll put that in the show notes and read it. And then next step from there. Where do they go?

So the book is written in a way that you can purchase it and it shares everything I know in a step by step process. And so that is a great place to start. Now, the reality is, how many books have you picked up and finished? How many books have you picked up and actually followed it? How many books have you just seen through and done all the exercises? And the reality is having somebody to help you guide through that helps. And so if people want to learn about me so that they can get to know me, if they like me and they trust me, then I work with individuals. I start with three months. I get them up to speed on their vision, voice, volume and validation. Really a plan, a content plan. And it's unique for each individual. But part of that is that inspiration, motivation, helping them get down to that core. Because if you're the person that does 10 things, it's very hard for you to decide what the one of those 10 things is that's going to serve the larger purpose. And I have the experience from the technical background, from the speaking background, from the publishing background to be able to say, what is it that you're after? Here are some channels that can get you there. And it's a matter of either once every two weeks or once a week. Very straightforward in that respect. I have a series of books that will be coming out in 2024, believe it or not, called Getting youg Ship Together. And each one focuses on one of these ships. So showmanship, entrepreneurship, leadership, relationship, sponsorship, partnership, all these things. Because at the end of the day, building a brand is just having.

An ongoing conversation with people who will listen about who you are and what you're interested in. So helping people focus in on that and then creating an actual content system that works like, here's something that we can all get better at, because LinkedIn, whether you like it or not, is a great professional network to be able to share your content. And when I look at LinkedIn profiles, I have like a 10 point that I look through. Just like naturally, that's where my eyes go. But I always look at recommendations, always. And so many people have zero recommendations. Wow. And so one easy way would be asking people that you've worked with and say, hey, I am working on, you know, taking ownership of my brand and we did some really good work here. I'd be curious if you'd be willing to recommend me for that work. Now a magic thing happens. They're going to be like, oh my gosh, I'd love to. And when they give you a recommendation, it usually has the information you're looking for. This person was very high Energy. They were very professional. They did this, they helped me out with this. And you're like, ooh, okay. Then you actually give recommendations unannounced to people that you've enjoyed working with. And so I suggest that you, you give a recommendation a week and you ask for a recommendation a week. And it's very simple. And literally, like, like maybe you and I, this is our first connection. I'd love to have you on as a guest of World Speakers Podcast. And then maybe three or four weeks later, I'll be like, you know what? I really enjoyed talking with James and I'll send you a recommendation. And you're like, wow, that's really cool. And then you might give me a recommendation. And so engagement sparks engagement. It could be as simple as just documenting the stories with the lessons and then finding a way to extrapolate them. I have one client and I'm bullish on AI and all that, but in ChatGPT now you can actually build GPTs. So I'm building custom GPTs for my clients who are tech savvy and want to want to learn based on their existing content, based on the work that we've done, feeding all of that data and information and putting borders and helping to infuse the voice and what wants to come out from the content lanes. So it's like a private chatgpt, but just for this person to help them flush out content, whether it's images or videos or scripts or everything like that. So technology is there, but you have to do the first step. You have to know what you want to be known for and that it's easy to use AI to create content, but is that content truly helping establish the vision that you want in a voice that's authentic? Yeah. It'll help to create volume and then eventually it'll help lead to that validation.

That's so gold. I love that. And it's interesting, with ChatGPT, I've done lots of behavioral analysis like Disk and via Strength and Clifton over the years. Right. And it gives you information about yourself, love languages, assessments. So what I've done is I went to ChatGPT and said, Hey, I want you to know lots about me as a person. Here are my top five values, here's my love languages, here's my strengths, here's what I stand for, here's what I'm known for. When I ask you to write anything, can you please consider all of this so that you represent.

Are you doing this in a thread in like GPT4 or have you explored actually creating your own GPT, feeding that information at the core.

I haven't explored their own GPT. How do I do that?

If you have a pro account, you have an option that says, like, you know, more options. And then you can actually create a GPT using natural language and uploading documentation. So you could take the five tests that you've done and let's say, let's say that you transcribe. I don't know. Do you ever do any solo interviews or solo webcasts?

Yeah.

So let's say you take five of your, your most favorite solo interviews, you transcribe them, you put them all as documents, you take five of your personality tests and five of your transcriptions, load it up into like, you actually click load and you upload them all. It reads and knows all of that. And then you literally, on one half of it, you say, I would like this GPT to help me create 600 to 800 word blogs for James Laughlin. Refer to the data I've given you to show about my personality and my examples. I've also given you four example blogs that I like of other people. And here's my voice, and here's this. I want you to ask a certain prompt, I'll give you a story, and I want you to formulate an out. Like you can tell it what you want it to do, and in real time, it creates that GPT. It can be private or public. And OpenAI is opening a GPT store in the beginning of the year. So it's like a new application. So people are building these private GPTs instead of it being on a single thread that gets really long and you have to keep feeding the information. So, yeah, I mean, again, using technology to help accelerate the content is great only if you know the type of content that is in line with what you want. And that's an exact example of you could do really great, the right things using generative AI to create content. But if you don't figure out what you want to be known for, then that'll be apparent.

That's so good. And before I ask one last question, I wanted to think about, say, a president, prime minister, for example. And they speak a lot, and often they have speech writers who write the speech. Very rarely would they write their own speech. And we all look to these people and we're like, wow, that was powerful speech. You know, well done, Obama or well done, whoever, that's awesome. But when it comes to ChatGPT for thought leadership, for creating content, I see such backlash from people around, but that's not you. And you didn't create that and you just added a few words at the end. But my take that is ChatGPT is our modern day equivalent of having a speechwriter. This is my speechwriter. It's gonna help me formulate the structure of a speech and then I'm gonna jump in and I'm gonna add my own touch and edit. That's my personal point of view in terms of the moral and ethical filter I use it with. How do you see it?

I love the analogy. And you have to understand that speech writers are very familiar with the people they work with. They've had long form interviews, they know about their childhood, they know about the stories. They're integrated into all the happenings. They're probably in some of these inside meetings. And so what keeps ChatGPT or any generative AI content creation tool authentic is that it's your story, it's that it's your lessons. And if you can help somebody to package that together, it's the same of giving data to a calculator that you want it to give you something that's refined. I use it all the time. And it's very authentic because I'm not saying come up with a story about personal branding. I'm saying here's a story that happened to me, here's the lessons. Let's flush this out to something that is true and authentic. For me, I'll give a slightly another analogy around TED and tedx giving four tedx talks. They are huge brand builders because it's an idea that's worth spreading. It's a nice high validated stage and a lot of people want to have a TedX. And let's look at this as like the speech opportunity. Okay? Just because you had a really crazy childhood or just because you had some crazy insight or you're a scientist that came up with a new widget for something, doesn't mean you can articulate it well. In fact, some of those brilliant people, like the biggest disconnect is their ability to explain their brilliance. So one thing I also do is I help people understand the process of applying for yes, you can apply for a TEDx. I applied to 13 TEDxs over a period of 2 years before I actually got my first one. And then it became a success stack and then I got the next and I got invited next. But I work with people to help listen to be that speechwriter, listen to their story and help structure it in an exciting, entertaining, technically correct, best practices toastmaster inspired way to get that idea out. And it's, it's, it's amazing how everybody has amazing stories and amazing lessons. Everybody has a TED Talk in them. Everybody does, but it doesn't mean they can just get up on stage. So maybe you can go to ChatGPT and say, I have this idea, I want to be on the TEDx stage and this is my story. And maybe it could create something that helps structurally to get you into a good spot. I've also been a lead speaker trainer at TEDxS where I'm working with all the speakers and some of them are, have such a well crafted story and some of them are all over the place. So again, what's authentic is the story and your ability to create that is your voice. But whether it's translated and tweaked through GPT, whether you hire a coach to help you pull that out of you, whether you know, you crowdsource it, or you ask for help or, or you get feedback or a mentor gives you advice, what's authentic? It's your story, it's your lessons. And that's where I think I'm super excited for this. To help accelerate your own authenticity.

Yeah, that's how I see it too. Thank you for sharing that, Ryan. And look, one last question. I'd like us to fast forward many, many years into the future. And you know, you're highly aware that it's your very last day here on earth and someone very young that you love, they're in your family or they're in your life, they're very young, they walk into the room and they say, ryan, how do I go about leading my life on purpose? What would you say to them?

I would go back to one of my favorite concepts that I remind myself of all the time. And it's that a lot of us chase hacks and apps and shortcuts, right? And I truly believe that if we use the word purpose as what, what could be analogous to success? Right? So in this, in this framework, actually I can even replace the word success with purpose.

People. Successful people or people with successful purpose are not doing what everybody else cannot do. Successful people who have purpose are doing what everyone can do. But not everyone does.

You could go to bed early and wake up and work out. You could drink more water than beer. You could volunteer your time. You could do all of these things on a daily basis. Meditation.

Like whatever it is, people are looking for these hacks and apps to shortcut to it. But we are all humans. We all for the most Part have the same. I won't even say functionality, but accessibility to technology and tools, because what if this person is in a wheelchair? What if this person doesn't have their purpose can be the same. But successful people are not doing what others cannot do. Successful people are doing what everybody can do, but not everybody does. And when you get the habits that put you into a place to find the success that you want, that's where purpose is.

That's really powerful. Ryan, thank you so much. And I want to say a huge thank you for opening up and sharing all of the stuff that's in the book. Sharing your VVVV, your 4V process. I'm certainly going to be putting that across the filter of my own personal brand, and I'm sure lots of other listeners will as well. But I'll put in the show notes, a link to the book, and also ways that people can connect with you on Link, any other platform that you're on. And I look forward to connecting in with you again soon.

Yeah, well, if you don't mind, I can. I have. I have a way we can wrap this all up here.

Let's do it.

Here is the deal. Let me give it to you. Real. The key to connection is to learn to be real. Because you are not perfect and neither am I. And that is the exact reason that we see eye to eye. Because everybody's different, but we are all the same. To be perfectly imperfect is how you win the game. And if you only showcase good and do not share the bad, you will miss connections that you never knew you had. Face. Graham, Twitter book. Are you linked in? Are you snapping out a TikTok, trying to fit in? Stop worrying about everybody else. Focus on being your authentic self. Because when you learn to ditch the act and learn to be yourself, you open up the windows to have people help you out.

I love it. That's a first ever in four years of podcasting. First ever. And that's. I'm never going to forget that. And anyone that's listening right now, like, do you remember that guy that rapped at the end?

That was awesome. Ryan, if you look at my LinkedIn, you look at my bio, it says, you know, I like to speak, I like to sail, and I like to rap. And so it's stupid, but it's fun. It's just, who cares? It's who I am. And so that's what makes it unique. And there's a. There's a U in unique. It's just Y, O, u, N, I, Q, U, E, it's just own it.

I love it. Well, you definitely are, and I sincerely appreciate it. It's been amazing, and I look forward to connecting again real soon.

Awesome. This has been a total treat to my day. So now when somebody asks me after this, how are you doing? I'll be like, I had the most energizing conversation with somebody, and that's me honestly ditching the act. So we'll see you soon, hopefully. And let's get you onto my podcast so your listeners can check it out and we'll just keep spreading the experience.

Count me in. I look forward to it. Ryan, thank you so much and have a great Christmas.

All right, thanks, buddy. Talk to you soon.

Cheers. See you soon.

Adios.

Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks and leaders. It's that time to get out there and I'll lead you life on purpose.