Leveling Up Your Brand: The Secrets to Creating a Strategic Advantage with Brad Costanzo

Beliefs are the hardest things to change in somebody, and it's rarely ever done with logic. We protect our beliefs, our perspectives and our paradigms because, you know, they inform how we see the world. But one of the best ways to change a belief isn't to tell somebody what to do. You just draw the dots and then give them a pen and then help them connect the dots themselves. Because when it's their revelation, it's much more powerful.

Hey, I'm Joe Fear and welcome to the Hustle and Flow Chart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic Hustle mode kind of guy and I want to share my experiences and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger. So that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy.

Hey. Hey. This episode is. It's kind of a continuation from an episode years past. This is a guy named Brad Costanzo I'm bringing back onto the podcast. He's one that's been on many times. He was an old business partner of mine and Matt Wolf, previous co host. And Brad is such an incredible connector and strategic thinker and consultant. He works with tons of companies, tons of companies here in San Diego. He's a good friend of mine and a lot of you probably know him or heard his name. He's kind of one of those guys that are like connected to everybody. So he gets incredible insights and then also does these amazing consulting strategy sessions and deep dives with specific people and brands to help them grow and expand where they haven't been thinking about. And specifically this time around we're talking about how planning for the future as companies, it's really difficult with changing and emerging technology, AI and all these tools coming out. So, so we chose in this episode to talk about branding and how to create a moat strategically around your company, your business, even if it's new or old. There's ways to do this with time tested principles that he's gonna walk you through and he always comes with frameworks and checklists. So this is extremely actionable as it always is when Brad's around and tons of crazy jokes. And you know, wild, wild things. I mean, I'm just gonna leave it to you there. So get out the notebook or voice notes, whatever you got when you're. When you listen to this. And go follow up with Brad. He's an amazing guy. He has a podcast called Bacon Wrap Business. It's not always up to date, but I think he's reinvigorating it. Go follow him anyway and you can check him out@brad costanzo.com so enjoy this episode. Tell me what you think about it later on when you're all wrapped up and let's dive in. Bradley. Bradley. That's the formal way to introduce you, right? Mr. Costanzo, you're back on the show and it's been far too long and there's only one of me on this side. Used to be my co host, Mr. Matt Wolf over here. He was taller, actually.

I hated that guy. Anyway, Guy fricking Matt now, now we'll know if you know if he's, if he's listening.

I'm not going to tell him I.

Got an angry tech.

But dude, I didn't look back the last time. But we used to do these jam sessions where it would just be open table, you know, sometimes we were around the table together doing these things and we've already been jamming for almost 40 minutes, man. And I know there's way more in the tank, so you're always up to. I love to bring you on to talk about that. Interesting. Because you're on the cutting edge, you're using tools, you're. You're a connector, you bring people together, you're strategic and how you think. But now with the AI on tools, I mean you're taking it way further than ever. But how you doing, brother?

Man, I'm good. It's so good to be back with you. I always miss jamming with you and you know, from whether it's running a business together or just hanging out and having a beer or jamming on marketing strategies, it's. Or doing one of our bacon wrapped hustle.

Yeah, whatever we want to call it.

It's a kind of a hybrid show. But yeah, no, it's awesome to back here. Been doing a lot recently. You know, a lot of people who've probably listened to the show and come across my episode which by the way, your chatbot likes to recommend me. So I was.

I think you're training the bot to recommend it more. Recommend you.

Oh, oh, definitely. Brad is the best podcast episode guest.

The.

You know, obviously I've got my own Podcast baking my business. But lately what I've really been doing is working with series of types of clients a lot. Most of them are either expert led businesses, like it's a business with a, a person in the forefront where they need a personal brand to kind of really put the, you know, infinite, or they're trying to reinvent themselves and create another act, another bite at the apple. And these are people who are either their business is stagnating. They're like, I just want to completely reinvent what I'm doing and step up, like get into a higher ability to serve at a higher level. And this is different than saying, oh, serve high tickets. You know, in fact, let me, let me rant on this. You can't turn on Facebook or see an offer that doesn't talk about here, high ticket sales, how to be a high ticket coach, how to be a high ticket consultant, et cetera. And to me, they all focus on the wrong thing, which is their focus on how much money they can get. It's a what's in it for me model. And this is elementary country. But the perspective is important, which is it's not how can I just charge more money to people? How can I go from charging a thousand to ten thousand? By the way, that's not even a high ticket, to be honest. But if you really want to go high ticket, it's like, how do I be a high? I don't even know the name for this, but it's like, how do I just deliver to high caliber people, high caliber results, the ticket, the price will be a result. Serving higher level people in a higher level way. It so happens to be that the higher level the people, the higher caliber the people are, the easier I think they are to serve. They don't want everything. They want a handful of things. They just want one thing that is a great catalyst in their business, but it's just to see a lot of people chasing high prices. How to be a high price coach, how to be a high price consultant, as opposed to be like how to be a highly valuable individual. One of my close personal friends and even a mentor of mine, Mike Koenigs, has a great thing he talks about. He goes, you know, the easiest way to make a billion dollars, help a billionaire make 10 billion. Right? And that mindset of just how can I help? How can I help solve much bigger problems for bigger people and players with money. So anyway, those are the people I've been really trying to serve right now by either reinventing who they are up leveling who they are, understanding how to accelerate their expertise and intelligence with, you know, AI tools and all these innovations that are out there. And that's kind of like what I've been really passionate about. And I know that we share a lot in common with that.

Yeah, we do. Yeah, dude. And I like the reframe pricing too because I know we can all take something from that no matter what we're charging. But yeah, when you reframe it out of the price is the thing. But you reframe it as like, hey, I'm valuable asset to your operation. I'm going to get you to this result might be a year from now, but you can kind of show them the map and show the gain rather than leading with the price as the thing. Yeah, it shows you you're integrated more than just a line item, I guess of that business.

Bingo.

Yeah.

And it's you know, and granted we see the, the marketing on the ads and you scroll on Facebook how to be a high ticket coach. And I do get why they're doing that because if you're going after an ad, you want to talk about what's in it for the but it's oh, I want to be a high priced, I want to make a lot of money. The problem is it breeds a lot of people who are just selfishly what's in it. How do I charge a lot of money for getting very little as opposed to how do I be a linchpin in somebody's life or business? Allows the amount of money I charge to be an afterthought.

It shouldn't be the thing. Like your value is the thing they want you or whatever you can create with them and it becomes like a co creation rather than yeah, like hey Brad, give me that thing that you told me you were going to get me and a line of deliverables, you.

Know, and you know, that's one of the things over like I'm a. I don't know if we talked about this, but I'm a partner and the head of strategy at a great marketing agency too called Branditize. And you know, we work with, you know like Brian Tracy and Jack Canfield and you know, a lot of other really well known people. They come to us because they have an expertise and they're really trying to get it out there and they really want to accelerate the, you know, the impact they're making on people. But they're fighting against all of these, you know, the sea of sameness and all of these other people there. Everybody's an expert these days. In fact, there's this, you know, with artificial intelligence, we just brought it up. We've now got. One of the biggest dangers to people with real expertise, authentic expertise, is AI and artificial expertise. Because I can go write a book, create content, whatever, on nuclear physics. And, you know, if I'm just reading chat GPT stuff, hey, it looks like I created this. There's no plagiarism, et cetera. And you're going to get a lot of expert litter, right? Graffiti out there, it's not art, right? It's just graffiti. It's litter and sameness. And I think we all know that, like, real expertise is going to be harder to find because you're not going to be able to filter. Is this real expertise or is it artificial? But at the same time, there's no moats to now writing a book and creating all this other stuff. There used to be so clients to come to us and me, and they go, well, how do we. How do we differentiate? How do we stand out, especially in an increasingly crowded market? And that's the challenge that I know I've been trying to solve is that differentiation.

You're speaking to the. I think everyone who's listening at this. This point, and it's top of mind and it's with me. I know we share that too. And it goes back to like, I had Lee Richter on the podcast, and I know you're friends with her as well, and she's like, I see myself as the connector of technology and humanity. And I feel like you're similar. We're both similar. And I think that is the superpower that we got to remember is that humanity piece being the. And this is where I've always seen you as so fucking awesome. And what I've learned a lot from how you work with people is, is being so connected, having a tight circle, but also figuring out how to work deals and find you this person over here, connecting with this person for this reason, but also build yourself into that deal so you're not just left behind when they're out crushing it, you know?

Yeah, I'm a big believer. You've heard me talk about this a million times. But access and influence, these are like the small hinges that swing the big doors, which is, how do I get access to the right people, the right resources, the right relationships, the right, you know, people and, you know, relationships and resources are to the things, whether it's money or skills or, you know, et cetera. And then. But then the influence piece, like, how do I. How do you know, can I influence them to act at a small level, at a large level, etc. But that access is also like, how do I get access and then keep access? And that could be, you know, doing, you know, buying it, doing a partnership, creating some kind of a, you know, a collaboration or a deal that allows me to, you know, make that passive money that we're all, you know, searching for.

Well, we are, and we're also. It goes back to like the no moat thing. Well, you kind of build yourself a moat when you have a trusted circle around you. I mean, I ain't going to take that from you. In a sea of sameness and automations, like, still need people and you need trust. And I feel like that's where your superpower is. That's mine as well. It's the value of these podcasts. Yours as well. Bacon wrap. So I'm happy you're restarting that bad boy, by the way.

Yeah, it was a crazy year. Had a lot of. Got real busy on some stuff and quite frankly, sometimes you get burned out on talking about the same stuff. But I know a lot of the, a lot of the new innovations have kind of refired my spirit up for that.

So same here. I did the same thing.

I'm just really excited to show people now how to differentiate whether it's with the tools or their brand or their message and then the way that they're showing up. Because as I said, the differentiation is getting a lot harder.

Well, so let's talk about that, because with the moat being like, like we were talking about it, it's like it's tough for business or anyone to really plan a year or two out. Even shorter in some cases. Depends on the industry you're in. How do you approach.

More so than ever. Yeah, more so than ever. Like with AI, especially in this space that most of your listeners are going to be dealing with. I actually believe it's impossible for most businesses right now, a vast majority, let's say 60 to 70%, to have any realistic strategic plans more than 24 months away because of the rate of obsoletion of certain technologies, of certain services of certain industries. I mean, and nobody's safe, even big software companies are at risk of obsoletion. And, and I think that now more than, however the brand, brand gets like a bad name. Like it, because it's such a big thing. But, you know, your brand is what people think about you. It's how you stand out. It's how you differentiate how you show up and it's what makes people remember, not only remember you but repeat to other people like oh, you need Joe for this, et cetera. So I've identified a lot of ways to stand out in a crowded market or to differentiate. So some of the ones that we're all familiar with and this, these are usually only done at large corporate Fortune 500 levels. Right. You can spend the most money on branding and awareness, right? You can be Nike or you can be everywhere. You can sponsor golf tournaments and do that. You just get your name out there. You can be the cheape. Walmart, right. Amazon. Well what do you need to be the cheapest? You need massive economies of scale otherwise somebody's going to be cheaper. You don't get that way. It's a race to the bottom and there's only one winner. You can be the most expensive. Also challenging to do because you know you can be a luxury brand like Louis Vuitton or something of that nature, Gucci, but there's only room for a handful of people at the most expensive. And that's got its challenges. You can also be the most specific or niched down. This is now anybody can do this, right? I'm the expert in X for the, for Y types of people. These are the ones that are usually at the top of everybody's mindset. But there's other ones that are. We all know these two. But I pulled up a little list here. I'm just going to kind of read them off and then I'll cover each one of them in a little more detail. Social proof and endorsements are another one. Social proof, demonstrable proof. There's a difference. We'll talk about goodwill, unique selling proposition, unique mechanism. Some kind of a big idea that looks like, oh, this is my unique mechanism being an interesting character development and there's a whole science behind that. Empathetic bonding is another one. Epiphanies and revelations. Some of these get into like the messaging, what you're doing, creating a 10 star experience, creating a, having a social impact mission, you know, social impact mission driven and then co branding opportunities. So if I were to dive into some of the ones that I think are the most powerful. But also if you're listening to this, you know, keep in mind this, these are, these are like all like ingredients in the kitchen. So you can do one of these or all of them. Hard to do all of them.

So it's kind of like figure out what do you have right now, where do you want to go?

Right, yeah, they're like Lego pieces to me, like, oh, what can I mix and match? And, you know, I can even send your listeners a short list of this stuff, put a link to it. But social proof and endorsements. Well, we know what social proof is. Do you have a large social media following? Well, okay, if, you know, 50,000. What do they say? Or 50,000 Elvis fans or 500,000 Elvis fans. Me.

Wrong.

That's that whole. It's an old saying, like back in the days. Well, you know, there's a whole lot of people who have this or that could even be authoritative endorsements. You know, Nike had Michael Jordan, they paid for it, but they got an endorsement. If you get somebody endorsing you or social proof, it doesn't even matter if it works or you have proof that it works, the crowd says you do. But then the other piece that's actually more. More powerful, but in combination it's the most powerful is demonstrable proof. Can you actually prove that it works? Yeah, all these people say it works, but now, look, here's the proof. Crazy Glue had a gorilla glue or Crazy Glue. One of those had a great commercial back in the days where if you. The helmet. Yeah, the work. The workman's helmet. They put Crazy Glue on top and then they stuck into a beam and he was dangling. Right. Infomercials are famous for this. Show me.

Right.

So can you show it? That's beyond testimonials. Like, can you do something beyond a testimonial is almost like social proof, but demonstrable. Can you demonstrate it?

It was Crazy Glue, by the way. Just looked it up. 80s.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So some of us older people will remember that Frank Kern was famous in our circles for using the word goodwill, which is really create helpful content. Evan Pagan talked about Move the Free, but just, are you putting good content out there that is making people go like, wow, this person is good. They can help me. I wonder what else. It's no like and trust factor. Fairly simple to understand. Then the other piece, which may be the most complex of it, but also very well known, is, you know, the whole unique selling proposition aspect. And there's multiple aspects of this. So a USP is, you know, what is the primary advantage of doing business with you and why is that unique? Now, I used to get hung up on this when I was thinking, okay, well, how can I be unique? Or what's unique? Or if I've worked with clients and they struggle to go, well, what's unique about us? Well, our competition is kind of, you know, they can do this as well. It's like your unique selling proposition doesn't have to be unique. It just has to have the appearance or the perception of uniqueness. You know, one example that is often used in case studies is like Domino's Pizza, 30 minutes for free. 30 minutes or lesser, it's free. That's their USP really. That's kind of their unique service advantage. It's not a unique, and it's not even that unique in the fact that anybody could do. It's not even a moat. So Papa John's could have came out and said 30 minutes or it's free too. 29 minutes or it's free. 7 minute abs. No, I got 6 minute abs. Was that something about Mary? I think it was. I think it just has to be. It doesn't have to be unique. You have to be the only one talking about it, planning to flag and accentuating that we do this.

It's a unique way of presenting the thing, whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah. Or a unique mechanism. And once more, it doesn't even have to be unique if you branded as unique. P90X was a good example of a company who had a unique mechanism to make their home fitness product work. And for anybody who doesn't really understand, do you remember the unique mechanism? It's two words that P90X was.

I did so many P90X videos too, and I could picture it, but I don't remember. No.

What makes it work? There's a two words that make it work. Muscle.

Yeah. Muscle confusion. It was. Yes, because you're all over the place doing different things.

It works because of muscle confusion. And it's like, oh, what is that? Right? What is muscle confusion? What does that really mean? Well, all they said is P90X is different. Because over the course, like every day you get a new workout and every workout's different. Okay? That's what we do. It's a new, intense workout and everyone's different. Why is that effective? Well, because now this is the premise that, you know, the, your muscles get used to doing the same thing over and over. So they adapt and then they don't. You don't lose weight because they get adapted. So what we do is we just confuse your muscles so they don't get adapted and we call it muscle confusion. And now you're like, wow, that makes sense. It makes logical sense. There's a premise here. And it's like, okay, that is unique. I don't hear anybody else talking about it. There's nothing unique about saying do a Bunch of different exercises every day and don't do the same thing twice. There's my thing. Anybody could have had that and other people probably did. But by branding their mechanism, their signature solution, their thing is backing it up. The premise is your muscles adapt. The science is actually true. So now you name it as unique mechanism. And that's what makes like a billion dollar brand, is that.

And they also put a time frame on it as well with P90X. You know, it was like a 90 day thing with this protocol, this muscle confusion thing. So. Yeah, exactly. They kind of nailed both, I guess.

And there's ways that, you know, there's easy ways to find a usp and some of them can be, we have the broadest selection, we have the biggest discounts, we have advice and assistance. We've got, you know, we're the most convenient, we're the most premium, we're the fastest, we're. We have the best support. Like Zappos was always, you know, known for like, oh, their brand was. We had the best support. But then there's other stuff. Like how do you create that big idea? Which is a big idea would in this case would be muscle confusion. Well, it's, it needs to be like intellectually interesting, compelling and curiosity driven to make you go, huh, tell me more like, what, what does that mean?

What does that mean? Yeah, exactly. It's a question, a new term. You're creating yourself that is brandable. You probably can get the domain name because no one else is thinking about that thing. You know, there's a whole bunch of things you can do with it.

Yeah. And then, so, and then when I'm thinking about that, like the little framework that I use is kind of like, okay, what does my customer ultimately want? X. Right. Well, how specifically do I help them get that? Well, this is what I do. Let's use P90X. What does my customer want? They want to lose weight and get in shape. Okay, what, how specifically do you fulfill this promise to get them this result? Well, I give them a bunch of home based workouts to do. Cool. Well, what is or could be unique or interesting about your method to do that? And I was like, well, every day they get a new workout. Okay, why is that effective now? Now you have to. That's my thing. Now tell me to support that premise. Well, that's effective because muscles lose, you know, adapt really easily. Okay, cool. Now, now you have that. Now the goal is to pull out the big idea, the muscle confusion from that. So you have the ingredients. Now this is where the magic of a branding expert or an expert comes in me, give me money. Now. I invert that, which is. Okay, what do you want? You want to lose weight? Great. This is how I would do it in a conversation. Because I go, joe, what do you want? You go to lose weight. Now I'm looking for that. Well, what you need is blank. Or if you heard of not the product, but you need muscle confusion. Right? You need blank. Well, what is that? Well, the premise is, since this happens and that happens, it leads to this. Therefore, we solve it with this. And here's how that works. And as a result, you get to lose weight. So I just try to think of these, like, these questions when I'm asking this so I can pull out that big idea, like, how do I name confusing your muscles? Well, muscle confusion. My dad.

Yeah, you're meeting people where they're at. Yeah, I like. I like that. Because you are building a moat. I mean, I guess if we're thinking about technology and all this stuff progressing, this is how you build a moat. You're. You're establishing a brand for yourself. No one else has that thing. I mean, they can make something like it. But if you're out there putting that thing in the sand and also showing how you can deliver that, 90 days, you get these different programs, you following this whole sheet that you can track and. And see your results, track your results, you know, and then come back and do it again if you want to. But it's. Yeah, it's now contained into this. This map that you could follow.

Exactly. So kind of moving on from there. I was talking about an interesting character. An interesting character. I may have heard Ryan Dice talking about this originally, but I did a lot of research into it. Why do people pay attention to your brand especially? This is really good for individuals. Right? So are you boring? Are you average? Are you whatever? Like, are you interesting? So, you know, you want to say, how can I occupy space in somebody's mind so they just can't explain why they even like you so much? Or forget it. They don't even have to like you. Like, you're interesting. Now, one of the easiest ways to do this is to be really polarizing. So you'd be polarizing where, you know, Howard Stern was polarizing, Grant Cardone is polarizing. You know, these people, they're even. Gary Vaynerchuk is pretty polarizing on some stuff. Like, you love. Like, I'm going to be in your face. I'm going to be this. You're going to love Me or hate me, you know, and now there's a, there's a subtle art to not being a complete asshole. But you kind of want to, you.

Want to do a branding. That's their individual moat, like the way they present themselves. Yep.

Hollywood's great at building interesting characters though, because like, you know, you don't just want somebody who's good looking, smart, tough, can't be beat, has no weaknesses, gets all the girls, has no problems, can't beat him. Like, that's just not interest. So they create people using a. What's often called a character diamond, which is how do we create almost polarizing aspects. One good example would be, I've heard this used a million times, so I'll use it because it's easy to understand, is like Superman, right? So Superman, if Superman didn't have several other characteristics, he would be boring because he's basically like God, right? He's all powerful, he can do all this stuff. You can't beat him. If there was no such thing as kryptonite, if he was always in Superman uniform, he would be, oh, he's great to have, but he's not that interesting. So what makes Superman interesting? Well, a, he can be killed by kryptonite, by a green rock can kill him. Nothing else can kill him but a green rock. Number two, Clark Kent. Superman is this good looking, strong, powerful guy. But when he puts on the glasses and the suit and he goes to work, he. He's like this bumbling fool. He's awkward with women. He can't get.

Nerd. Yeah.

Lane to go on a date. That's interesting, right? So, you know, Hollywood has a whole way to do this. And you know, one of the ways to think about this, there's no one right way. But it's, you know, Hollywood's like, what's the north point? Like the north star of your diamond. And that is like the first thing people see or think about you. And you know, it could be your Superman's powers. Now the opposite side of that is like, what's your vulnerability, your weakness, your humanizing element. In this case, it's kryptonite. Now on the other side, it's like, what's your, like, what's your non negotiable belief? What do you stand for? Truth, justice in the American way. And then on the other side is like, what's an interesting quirk or character trait? Well, Clark Kent's nerdiness is an example, you know, but you can also think of other things. Like this is you're just kind of taking an inventory of your character and who you are. What's your upbringing, you know, is there a specific part about your background, your experiences shaped who you are? Is there persuasion strategy? Is there a way you get what you want of influencing others? Maybe it's, you know, just what is your strategy there? Is it novel? It might be, you know, the Hill they're willing to die on might be their belief in truth, justice in the American way. It might be something else. It might be new. I never thought about that. Right. It might be somebody's ability to tell stories in business. Your, your North Star might be to become the leading provider of a product or service. The Hill they're willing to die on might be their to customer satisfaction, their bringing might be their history of non stop innovation or starting in a garage. And their persuasion strategy might be their focus on certain typ in marketing or branding. Right. But it's just like come up with these things that are somewhat opposite and interesting and don't be afraid to show the vulnerabilities or don't be afraid to show the quirkiness because that's what makes.

You interesting and that's how people relate. That's why people attach and want to stick with you over the other guy. That might seem flashier or have some new shiny product that you might be drawn to, but you're like, I don't know. I still like Gary Vee and his crazy ways over here. Have that piece in me. I can relate to that. Maybe not the whole thing, but a little bit.

Well, it comes down to the entertainment, entertainment factor. Like, why should I pay attention to you? Well, I like you. I just eat quirky and weird, but I like you.

It's. It almost could be satisfying in that way just to hear that content. And then maybe there's like a nugget or two that you actually do something with. But I mean, that's the beauty of these podcasts too, you know. And you know this as well.

I mean, yeah, absolutely.

That's why people listen. Yep. I like it, man.

Thanks. And a couple of the other ones I talked about empathetic bonding. And this is. Comes down to a lot of copywriting. It's not even just copywriting, it's just really understanding your, your market better than anybody else so that you can say the words that are in their head and they're like, oh my God. You just. You get me. You said these encapsulated my frustrations better than I could ever encapsulate on myself. I was Talk. I actually told Rich Sheffern this a long time ago when I, you know, I'm on my show. But there was this moment he did this, gave me this what in copy, call it a dominant emotional release. So I was at a, you know, I was at a conference early in my entrepreneurial career, and I said, man, I just feel like I'm playing entrepreneur. Like I'm not organizing resources, I'm not building a business. I'm just kind of like doing all this shit myself. I just playing the game. I'm not really doing it. And the next day I got an email from. I was on Rich's newsletter. It just said, are you playing business, Brad?

And I was like, yeah, yeah.

Were you. Were you listening to me? And it just said, if you don't have systems in your business, if you don't have X, Y and Z, you're just. Just playing the role of a business owner, but you're not a business owner. And I stopped right there and I scrolled through, clicked the thing, and I bought whatever he was selling, business growth systems because he empathetic way that he said what I was saying, I was like, you get me, so you must be able to help. Looking for ways to bond empathetically. And you have to understand the customer, their journey, their wants, their needs or obstacles, what they say. You know, you have to interview them, you have to survey them, you have to call them and talk to them. And you have to say what is in your brain. What are you saying? It just so happens that AI is really good at pulling this stuff out. I've gotten really good at creating these avatar profiles that find. Find opportunities hypothetically. The other big one that you know, besides some of the other ones I talked about is epiphanies and revelations. So this is really similar because you need to do the same work to get these out. But this is where it's similar to empathetic bonding. But you're getting somebody to see something in a new way. You're not really giving them the answer to something. You're showing them a new perspective so that they see the answer in a new way. And it dawns on them like, holy crap, I never thought about it like that.

A new angle, a new perspective, a new belief, right?

Beliefs are the hardest things to change in somebody. And it's rarely ever done with logic. We protect our beliefs, our perspectives, and our parents paradigms, because, you know, they inform how we see the world. But one of the best ways to change a belief isn't to tell Somebody what to do. You just draw the dots and then give them a pen and then help them connect the dots themselves. Because when it's their revelation, it's much more powerful.

Yeah.

You know, I'm trying to think epiphanies that I had, and sometimes you can just draw it for them. But, you know, if it's done in a metaphor or analogy or something like that, well.

And I feel like it has to connect with something they already believe in. They want to have to change whatever part of their belief. Or maybe they're kind of a little shaky about it. A part of it, like not fully in, you know, and we have multiple beliefs, so it could be almost like a shell or an onion that we unravel from the outside in a little bit.

Yeah, well. And the simple process that's pulled this up that I try to use, what I'm going for is like, okay, what does my customer want? This is similar to the other exercise. What do they want? What do they want to avoid? Right? Why do they want it? What are the reasons they want this thing? And, you know, what does he believe is true about his current situation, about his desired situation, about the solutions that exist, that. Or not, about what's holding him back, you know? And then I ask, is that actually TR true or is there more to the story? And that. That's one question that helps. And it's like, okay, well, maybe that not actually true. Maybe that's the real problem, is a symptom of a deeper problem. Right. And I just can continuously repeat this until I get that. That almost those hidden reasons for why they don't have what they want. And then. And by the way, this. This is not science. This is an art to it. Then I search for metaphors. What is this problem? Like, what is the solution like? And what are the symptoms of the problem? Like, right? So now I'm playing with these. And every once in a while, you'll get them to look at it like this. And you go, oh, you're totally never thought about it like that. Let me give you an example of an epip I had when I was reading MJ DeMarco's book, Millionaire Fast Lane, Good Book, right? And he goes, people think that Get Rich Quick doesn't exist. And they're wrong. It does exist, but they're confusing it with its evil cousin, Get Rich Easy. Okay? Now I'm like, that's a big idea, by the way. I was like, tell me more.

Yeah, cool.

Now I'm making you support this thing. And then he goes, look, if you go to work, this is a metaphor, right? Or analogy. If you start a business and you spend 12 hours a day on this business, and five years later you sell that business for $10 million, did you get rich quick? And he goes, depends on your definition of quick. True, if you spe 40 years of your life in a highly professional job and you're making a half a million dollars a year, whatever, but it takes you 40 years to accumulate $10 million, did you get rich quicker or slower than the other guy? You ended up with the same amount of money, like, well, I guess it depends on your definition of quick. I guess get rich quick does exist. Because if I can bust my ass for five years and walk away with 10 million, or bust my ass for 40 years and walk away with 10 million,. I guess I got rich quick. And I remember reading that and go, fuck. It depends on the definition of quick. It's not overnight. But now the point he was trying to make, the whole thing, to summed it together, is that if you want to get rich quick quick, you need an exit event. You need to build a have, own a business, or build, buy, or own. You have to own a business that you can then sell and have an exit event so you can get a windfall of money all at once. That's how you get rich quick. It's just not overnight and it ain't easy. And I remember that stuck in my head. And I said, I've been thinking about quick all the way wrong now. I read this book about 10 years ago. I'm talking about it 10 years later. I probably read the book longer than that. I'm talking about it with you here today. And I remembered in detail because it was an emotionally charged event. And that's where epiphanies are so powerful because they tie into your emotions. You're like eureka. And then you never forget the person who gave you that moment.

And it meets you where you're at. And this is like the Eugene Shorts with breakthrough advertising. It talks about the stages of awareness.

Yes.

You know, it's like unaware, problem aware, solution aware, product aware. And then maybe I said product problem aware, above that. And then, and then the most aware, it's like they're ready to really go for it. But it's the layers of the youngin. So wherever they're at, it's just like an offer, like any offer you put out there, a lead, lead magnet or sales offer, whatever it is. Affiliate offer.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yep. And then, so the best way to do this is just ask, probing question that allow people to connect the dots. You know, people don't like to be told what to do. But we love having ideas even if they aren't really our own ideas. You know, use metaphors, use visuals to illustrate something. You know, like, oh wow, like I never actually thought about it like that.

But you know, being resourceful, it's like having that knowledge or the ability to recall something.

Exactly.

Makes you feel good.

Yeah. And I, and I won't belabor the other ones because I think some of these are actually a little bit easier to understand. You know, it's like create a 10 star experience. Everybody knows that a 5 star experience is how do you overwhelm somebody? Zappos is a great example. Right. They just make returning your shoes so much easier. Amazon is a 10 star experience for customer services. Obsession about that. Social impact or mission driven? Those two are pretty similar. But like the mission driven, I may not be making a social impact. I may not be giving back like Tom shoes. I may not be giving, you know, one pair of shoes to somebody else, but I might have a mission to like I'm on this business because I'm, I'm on a mission to cure whatever. I mean, they're just buying into my mission.

Like my people relate to that too. It's just another one of those prongs to the character, you know, of your business or your personal brand.

Exactly.

They can attach to.

Yeah, yeah. And then the last one, I'm trying to think of some other examples. I don't, they're escaping me right now. But co branding is another one. Like if I can, if I can be, if I can attach myself to somebody else who's got more authority, positioning and a better brand in the marketplace, then I get to, you know, capitalize on that aspect. And there's a million of these businesses who've done it. I'm just trying to think of other companies who've either spun something off. You know, licensing is a great way to do it. You know, you can, you can take, you can take a product that you've got and another company doesn't have that product, but they've got a brand and you can license their brand brand for your product and you're just paying like I love licensing and that's a great way to piggyback on what they've already got.

And that's how you partner too. I mean, you're doing this right now actively with multiple people. I've done it for many times, you know, even as an Affiliate, say Thrive Cart, for instance, convert box. Like, there's a bunch of those apps for so many years that Matt and I co branded in a lot of different ways. And I mean, it wasn't our ip, but we, like some people would stop me at conferences thinking I'm the Thrive Cart guy. It's like, well made a lot of videos and content about it, but I didn't create it. Yeah. So there's that whole borrowed, I guess, credibility and branding you can create for sure.

Yeah. So I just give a lot of thought to that. I've got kind of a working list anytime I think of something new, but I'm always trying to go, okay, these are all the ways to differentiate yourself. Now how can I combine these? Like, I may only use two or three things, like, not a polarizing figure. I don't ever want to be. I don't want to be that guy. And quite frankly, I don't even think I'm that interesting of a character when it comes to the. This definition. Or at least I haven't built that out. Like, I may have different quirks and personality traits that I could accentuate, like we all do, but I've never actually thought about that. Like, I think of myself as just like the average guy who's, you know, people kind of like, they like me, but they don't exactly know why. But I don't necessarily stand out. Like, oh, man, so and so is so he's like, really smart, but he's wacky as hell. Or this, that or the other. But I might be able to create a lot of goodwill and give people epiphanies and have a unique mechanism, and that might be all I need.

So. And I would agree with that, man. And that's how I see you is. Is like, it's what I started this conversation out with. You know, it's. You don't need to be a. A Gary Vee or a Grant Cardone. I definitely am not that way. I think there's a relatability factor. I know that's for me. And then connecting genuinely, like focused. I know you do that well. And then being resourceful to people. I mean, people love the connector. People love that aspect and that can go to a brand as well. Translate over there. And like, with this podcast, I know one of the big things is more of a mission behind it where it's like happiness for entrepreneur. It's finding enough. It's not burning the fuck out. And like, doing business for business sake and killing yourself in the process, like, that ain't cool. It's not sustainable, attainable for anybody. So.

And man, you know what? You know why I think also that's really important right now is because of the recently accelerated pace of business, because of AI, I believe there's been, I've witnessed it. I felt it so much, almost excitement slash anxiety. Things just got so much faster. And now, although AI allows us to operate faster and more efficiently, we have to because we can step on the gas. But it's almost like, you know, you're going down the highway at 65 miles an hour and there's a lot of traffic and then something just opened up, up. And now Instead of going 65 miles an hour, you're going 100 miles down the highway an hour. But you're not, you didn't just leave the pack. The entire highway is going 100 miles an hour. And now if you start to slow down a little bit, you'll get overrun. And I think I felt like that. I think other people have felt like that. And it's like exciting because we're going faster, but it's, it's almost like, oh my God, if I take my foot off the gas pedal, will I get run over? Will I even be able to sustain? Will I be completely put out of business? And I think a lot of people are worried about that and they, they should be because it's very real.

Oh yeah.

It' easy to not focus on fulfillment and happiness and forget what's important because.

We need to speed up and slow down at the same time. And it might. And I feel like the slowdown, or maybe it's the, you know, the detachment from the speed up, this dopamine freaking hit all the time, swelling of our brain that we feel like. I mean, everyone's feeling this in whatever way, but it's like you can open up, chat GPT, the app or something, ramble like a crazy person and guess what? What? Or ask it 50 billion questions. It's not going to slap you upside the face. It's going to giving you answers. So you're like, I'm learning so much I can do, you know, and okay, great. But we all still have so much time in the day. We're still human. We need that humanity piece to slow down. Yeah.

And I'm a big fan of that because the one thing I know how to do really well is enjoy my life. And I'm not talking work hard, play hard. I mean, I guess I do to a degree, but I really, I know the things that make me happy and I like doing them. And it's. To me, it's all about, you know, what the symbol for prescription is.

Yeah, Rx.

Rx. Right. To me, that's. And it's a big R with the X on the leg. Right. It's a little X, big R. To me, that's the prescription for a good life. So. And it's hidden in relationships and experiences with those relationships. Very simple. They're connected. R is the most important. Like, experiences without relationships are absolutely, you know, messed up. You can have great relationships and not a lot of the relationships are what makes us happy. But when you can combine those two as peak experiences with relationships that you value the most, whether it's family or friends, that's what it's all about. That's why, you know, whether it's travel or just getting, you know, traveling with your friends or. Which I do a lot of, or just getting your friends together once in a while and, you know, not necessarily just getting a beer, but like, engineering experiences with them that are going to be meaningful and last full and, you know, lasting and emotional bonding, et cetera, where it goes deeper. To me, that's. That's what it's. Everything else is subservient to relationships and experiences with them. That's all I care about. Like, and now money serves that for me. Like, why do I make money? So that I can have peak experiences with the people that I love and.

Live in a capitalist environment. I guess that's the thing that we need to an extent to.

Yeah. And experiences don't need to be peak experience. It doesn't mean to be like peaks and valleys or it has to be this amazing epic adventure or whatever. It can just be bonding, you know, getting together once a month with the people about the most and just making sure that it's somewhat meaningful and not just bullshit. Because that's the sauce of life. And so I'm excited by how fast things are going because it's fun and the momentum. But at the same time, that's not why I'm existing. I'm existing to make better relationships and make better memories with those relationships. In that book, Die With Zero, which I know you read. Yeah. Like, one of the things I like that he talk. Talked about there. By the way, that book was full of epiphanies.

Oh, yeah. I want to. I gotta reread it. Like, it's a God to have to kind of. Yeah.

And it's one of those that, like, if you're. If you like this idea of how do I give People epiphanies like read books like that where it's like never looked at it from that perspective. But I like the fact that one of the things he said, he goes, people think you just retire in money, but you actually retire on memories. Because you can have a. Let's say you made a lot of money, but you only did one thing. You don't have a lot of great experiences with relationships, a lot of great memories, but you're sitting on a fat stack of cash in your rocking chair when you're old, but you're by yourself, can't spend it. Yeah, yeah, but you could be poor. But if you lived a rich life of amazing experiences and people, especially if some of those people are still in your life, whatever those memories, like, you may not have everything, but if you got food, shelter and. And your mind, your memories, like I'm not at. Neither one of us are at that stage. But that's how you retire happy.

Yeah, man.

So I take that to heart and I try to remember it and I prioritize that stuff like you do.

You do. Well, yeah. I mean, thank you for sharing that book too. It was a few months back and I read that as I was is like kind of figuring out how do I want to run this new version of Hustle and Flowchart my business, how do I want to spend my time, my family? And it's memories. And yeah, we're both in that age range where we're very able to do a bunch of cool stuff with people and friends, family around us. But yeah, there's definitely a point where it's diminished returns in terms of the type of experiences you can have. You still have experiences, but obviously things degrade. You don't need as much money at the end. Plan for it. And I think that was the cool thing is you could predict. Well, you can't predict, but at least you could plan for the unexpected in the future while still like, you have a target. It just like brings a lot more certainty to life while still optimizing for the memory. 100%. Yeah, it's. It's cool. So highly recommend. Died with zero.

Yes. I was at Speakeasy Mastermind here recently and Lisa Sasevich recommended. And I was like, oh, yeah. And then I think a lot of other people there ended up popping around.

Yeah, I saw it inside the speakeasy Slack too. Good book.

Yeah. Speaking of happiness, you know, years ago I was at Awesomeness Fest in Costa Rica and I was walking on the beach and it was one of these things this is 2010. And there's two words came into my mind. Uncomfortable happiness. I was like, well what does that mean? And I started wrote a blog post about it somewhere. But it really is this concept like gone through many times in my life where I've got all of the basic trappings of success. House, wife, you know, good relationship, nice place to live, decent car, money in the bank, not even like wealthy or like, you know, whatever, just comfortable. But I've had a lot of comfortable unhappiness, right. And this, this ties into a little bit of that comfort zone topic. But. And I realize a lot like for most of my life, like why do you want to make a bunch of money? Well, so that I, I can have nice things and, but ultimately be comfortable. You want to feel safe and comfortable, live in a nice place. I want to not worry about all this stuff. I want to have stress free life is stressful. So most of us are trying to get out of stress. So when people go, I want, I want to be rich. So I. Why? For freedom. Well, what do people want freedom for? They really want freedom from pain and stress and discomfort. But then once you get comfort you realize shit, I ain't happy. I know a lot of comfortable people who aren't happy. So I started to think, well, what is uncomfortable happiness? And I think it comes down to this was actually encapsulated in Tim Ferriss's four hour work week is he talks about the difference between distress and eustress. E.U. s euphoria. Eustress, which is that I'm working on something meaningful or fun or whatever. Like I'm working for something but I'm, I'm out of my comfort zone. I'm pushing myself, I'm learning, I'm expanding and to me that's like that it's uncomfortable happiness. Like how do you find that happiness? You know, And I'm not saying anything that isn't too new like get comfortable being uncomfortable and this, that the other.

But we all go in phases, right? Like there's times of. And sorry to maybe cut off a thought there but yeah, I feel like we. Because I've definitely. I know the feeling and for a while while it's like some stressful stuff can happen. You can maybe have a burn up of a business or a change of a business. I mean I think I experienced a little bit of this over the last few years. It's like yeah, you go through valleys and troughs and. Or I guess at peaks and valleys it is sometimes the troughs go deeper, deeper but that could be caused by being too comfortable and complacent. And then you kind of take yourself out of the game a little bit. You make yourself in your mind less relevant. And I know I've done that where I'm like, okay, I'm good for now or I feel like I have enough. Well, like, but don't just stop there. Like that's why. Yeah, I'm very cautious. I love the whole uncomfortable happiness, the stress, you stress, it's, it's not a balance. It's more like a harmony of those things because they do jive together.

And it's realizing, it's realizing that comfort doesn't make you happy. But don't. It's like money doesn't make you happy. Right. Tell that to somebody who's broke. So point is get to the point of comfort but then realize that that's not the finish line. Just like I remember when I went on my honeymoon like five years ago, six years ago, so I don't even break in. Remember seven, eight years ago.

I'm like, I think it's longer than five years ago.

When was it? Yeah. So I remember I went on that took a three week wreaking honeymoon to Greece and it was amazing. And after about a week and a half of just going to the beach every day and reading a book, I was like brock and bored.

Dude. Yeah, well, Jordan Peterson talks about that. It's like everyone wants to retire on the beach and drink margaritas. It's like great. After like a week of that, you're probably bored. After a month of that, you're burnt, you're fat, you're, you're hurting. It's like that's not the life.

Yeah. And I mean it's so. But it's so hard to get out of that. Accumulate, accumulate, accumulate for as much as you can because. And I think the reason a lot of us want to accumulate a lot of money, myself included, is, is less about how can I go a bunch of cool stuff and it's more how can I protect myself on the downside where like how can I protect myself from ever being homeless, from being hungry, from not being able to have the freedom to go move and do what I want. I don't want to run out of money. So we just got to accumulate more and accumulate more. That's one of the things about Die With Zero is he talked about a kind of a framework to plan out your investing strategy etc so that you can incorporate engineer the fact that you won't if you knew you wouldn't run out of money. Like, if you knew, Joe, that you and your family would be totally taken care of comfortably. Not necessarily not wealthy, not. You got a few money, you can go do all the fun stuff and go to Europe whenever you want or whatever, but you just knew my house was paid for. I'm not going to run out of food, and I'll have at least a basic entertainment budget for the rest of my life. If you knew for a fact, like, how much stress would that just completely remove off your back, right? If you just knew I'm going to live to be a hundred or whatever. And I believe least got enough. And I think none of us, most of us don't really have that unless, you know, we have enough money where it's engineered. But I think all of a sudden we'd be like, okay, I now do I need to make millions of dollars a year? Do I need. Or do I just want to make enough to where now I can. That's taken care of. I just want to have enough money to go have some fun. It's like, it's okay not to be super duper wealthy.

It's.

It's also okay to be super duper wealthy. It's totally fine. What's not fine is thinking that you're deficient or that you're, you know, et cetera, because you're running in this fear program that if I don't have X, I'm not going to get, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the goal is get out of that fear, know your numbers, get out of uncertainty. I think that's a big piece of it and there's so many ways around it. And I love the whole. Yeah, die with zero. It allows you to formulate what your number is based off of your criteria and how you can plan for the future and, like, brings a lot of certainty, you know, to things where, where you can free it up to prioritize or like, reprioritize how you spend your time right now. That's what I did for me and it. And I. I'm not typically the one to think that kind of way. Like with the financials and like, think about, oh, what types of insurance might. When I'm 80 years old and like, I don't want my family to have to care for, you know, wiping my butt and all that. It's like I'm seeing what that's like now these days. Oh, dude.

I'm gonna tell you.

I'm gonna tell you something that's like, creepy, weird, so this is a creepy, weird thing that just happened. I just mentioned MJ DeMarco. That's the second time in a month that I've mentioned his name. The last time.

Did I just tell you?

No, but this is. This is crazy, though. So I mentioned his name because I was on another podcast episode and I brought up that exact same story. I don't remember even what show I was on at the moment, but I brought him up that day. I got an email from his newsletter, and it was May 11th. So I. What's important about that is the last email I got prior to that was May 2017.

Wow.

I just got an email from him just now. It just came in. So twice in a. Twice in a month has it happened. We're quite literally, I mentioned his name on a podcast, and that same day, I got a random email, like, and he hasn't emailed since at least May 11th. They're not going to spam or whatever. Anyway, I thought that was really, like, spooky.

I think we should hit him up, man. Man, I don't know him, but we.

Should try to tell me something.

But, yeah, I think so. Man.

That's kind of wrap this up, though. Magic. Little magic in there.

I dig it, man. We gotta do this again.

I'll pull you back on my show.

Let's do it. Play this if you wish. Or we can do a side chat, a different chat.

I'm just gonna reignite it.

All right, let's go. Let's go, baby. Hey, how. How do people find you and maybe get whatever you got going on that's freely available or just, you know, Brad.

Costanzo.com is a great way, like, you can get a links to my pod, my agency, etc, Brad, Brad costanzo.com text me 214-673-0599. Hit me up. That's my personal cell phone. Joe knows that. Damn dog.

All right.

I don't answer calls that I don't recognize. And I can always not text you back if you're true.

We all get enough of those, I guess, these days. Just hand out your number.

Exactly.

All right, dude. Appreciate you, brother.

Thank you.

All right, all right. That's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living to work. It's all about working to live if you need to do the work. But, you know, work can be fun, and it should be fueling for your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard, if you got some nuggets of wisdom that you want to share or you're just noodling on right now. Please go tell others. The way that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list writing a review or whatever it might be. Everything helps. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast and I will see you next time.