Rory Vaden: The Personal Brand Strategy That Actually Works
In this interview, Rory Vaden explains why wealth and impact come from mastering a single, focused income stream and building a personal brand that is essentially a digitized reputation. He shares findings from the world’s first large‑scale personal‑branding study (74% of Americans trust a person with a strong personal brand, 30% would even date them) and introduces the Reputation Formula (Results × Reach = Reputation). Vaden describes the Sheehan’s Wall framework that separates the unknown (obscurity) from the well‑known (notoriety) and shows how breaking through the wall requires concentrating resources on one audience, one topic, and one platform—much like Gary Vaynerchuk’s early focus on wine on YouTube. He outlines a step‑by‑step process for discovering one’s uniqueness: define the single problem you solve in one word, identify the specific audience you serve, and then craft content that educates, encourages, or entertains. Vaden stresses that service, not fear or ego, fuels sustainable motivation, and that building relationships before you need them creates a reciprocal network. He critiques money and fame as shallow motivators, noting that once debt‑free many realize they don’t need extravagant wealth, and that chasing fame often breeds ego and burnout. Instead, serving others creates a win‑win dynamic where the provider feels needed more than the client needs them, eliminating rejection and burnout. Throughout, he cites client successes (NYT best‑sellers, TED talks, million‑dollar revenues) and reinforces that diluted focus yields diluted results. The conversation ends with a call to action for listeners to book a free branding call.
Chapters
Everybody who got rich got rich from one amazing stream of income. Gary is the ultimate example of this because, yes, he talks about all sorts of stuff today. But in the beginning, Gary Vaynerchuk talked about one thing, wine, on one platform, YouTube. If you have diluted focus, you will get diluted results.
Results. I'm feeling attacked right now. Lori, welcome back to the Earn Your Happy podcast. This is way more fun being in person.
I know, I miss you, buddy. I wish you guys would just move to Nashville.
I know, you know, it's never off the table. I know it's never off the table because here's what happened the other night. My friend Brit that I'm staying with, yeah, took me to somewhere called the Listening Room.
Oh yeah, it changed my life. It's how they hook you.
It would make me move here. I'm not kidding you. I left and called Chris and I was like, no, we have to be around inspiration like this.
Yeah.
So if people don't know what it is, it's like a place where all these songwriters go and they talk about the creative process and songwriting and all of the things.
So maybe you'll become a pop star. That's like one thing you have not done, which you could totally be, because right now I'm just a karaoke star.
Truly. Brit and I went back and we did karaoke for 2 hours at our house.
Awesome. I never— just at her house? You didn't like go downtown? No. Oh yeah, kidding me.
No, we're the best, we're the best audience because we really, you know, we cheer each other on. So I love it. Um, I'm so excited that you're here. And you know, people don't know that you are running an event today. You ran an event yesterday.
Well, my wife really runs the whole company and the events. I'm—
we love her.
I'm a figurehead bobblehead that shows up. But, uh, yeah, we do have an event going on right now, and we have like 60 people in town and mission-driven messengers. That's, that's who we serve. And our community collectively is making a dent in the world. We just had our 35th client hit the New York Times or Wall Street Journal or USA Today bestseller list. We've had 6 clients that have had TED Talks go viral with over 1 million views. We've had like 9 clients grow their annual revenue more than $1 million a year. And these people are making a difference and they're doing the things that you and Chris have done and so many people and going, there's a process to do this. There's a, there's a— we have created basically a science and a process for how do you get your message out to more people and not just make money, but really make it make an impact. So really, really proud of our community. It's Brand Builders Group is is not a profit maximization machine. We are an impact maximization machine. And, uh, man, I just get my kicks and my thrills these days from seeing clients, like, do awesome stuff. So yeah, we're— that's what we're doing. We're doing— we're doing that.
And your wife AJ is amazing. I, I literally have so much fun whenever I get to drop in with her. So I have gotten to meet so many incredible people through you that you have sent my way because of the awesome people that you work with. But Brand Builders Group, why is it so important that we have a personal brand?
Yeah, well, if you just look at the data on this, and that's something we are, um, a lot of times I tell people I'm just really a nerd with a microphone because I'm such a data person. And we actually conducted the world's first and largest personal branding national research study. So this is a PhD-led, academically valid, you know, empirical study weighted to the US Census. And we asked a whole bunch of questions on what is a personal brand, why does it matter to the average person on the street. And one of the questions that we asked is, how much more likely are you to trust someone if they have an established personal brand? And 74% of Americans say they are more likely to trust an individual if they have an established personal brand.
Mm.
Which means that you only need to have a personal brand if you're in a business where trust matters. Mm-hmm. Because 3/4 of people say, I will trust you more. And that translates specifically, we also measured this in the study, to say they're more likely to recommend you. Wow. They're more likely to buy from you. They're more likely to work for you. In fact, 30% of Americans say they're more likely to date someone just because they have an established personal brand. So, ooh la la.
Wow.
Yeah, it's a really big deal. And it's this whole personal branding thing. I think people sometimes think, oh, that's for influencers or that's for TikTok stars or YouTubers. It's not. The number one profession that people said they care most that their provider has a personal brand is a doctor.
Oh my.
A doctor. Then lawyer is near the top of the list. Their employer in general is near the top of the list. And this is like all these are around 60%. You can download a version of this study if you want at freebrandstudy.com/LoriHarder. We'll give you the whole study if you just want to like see all the data. And so what we realized is, oh, it's actually a simple Revelation, the higher the requirement for trust, the more important having a personal brand becomes.
Oh wow, that is so interesting. And so many of those people that you named don't ever think of having a personal brand. So where are you seeing this? Who's coming to you like going, I need help right now. Like I've established a big career in this area, but it's like no longer translating. Or, you know, we had just talked before this about people who are really successful in their own right in a company and they end up either selling that company or leaving the company and feel like they are starting from ground zero because they don't have something that follows them.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people, when they think of Brand Builders Group or they hear about us, they hear about our celebrity clients, right? Yeah. Lewis Howes and Ed Mylett and Amy Porterfield and, you know, Jim Quick and Eric Thomas, the hip-hop preacher. Like, I'm working with John Maxwell right now. Like, we work with a lot of pretty high-profile folks. But that's like 1% of who we actually work with. And I love working with those people. But our, our heart really is for people who are just starting out. And it's, it's for the person who is the best kept secret. Because here's, here's what's frustrating. So there's something that we have that we call the Reputation Formula. And the Reputation Formula says that results times reach equals reputation. Results times reach equals reputation. So if you go, you know, Mother Teresa had huge positive results.
Yeah.
And she had worldwide reach. So she has a huge positive reputation. Adolf Hitler had huge negative results and worldwide reach. So he has a huge negative reputation. Michael Phelps. Do you know who Michael Phelps is? Who's Michael Phelps?
Swimmer.
Swimmer, right. From which country?
Here.
U.S.? Yeah. Winningest gold medal Olympian of all time.
Yeah.
Now, this is not a trick question. If I ask you, who is Jenny Thompson? Do you know who Jenny Thompson is?
No.
So Jenny Thompson is the winningest female gold medalist of all time.
Mm.
She is also from the United States. She is also a swimmer.
Okay.
When you look at their results, they have comparable results on the world's biggest stage. But their reputation is very different and it's because of the reach. Now, I don't know why that is. Neither one of them is a client of ours. But here's something that I hate about the way the world works. It's not the best idea who wins, and it's not the smartest person who wins. Very often it's the best marketer that wins. It's the ideas that have the most attention that win. And so a lot of our audience are, like I said, mission-driven messengers. These are people who care to make the world a better place, and they spend more time on their craft learning how to actually do the thing. Like Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is one of our favorite clients. Yes, love her. She's a good friend of yours, right? I mean, she spent her lifetime doing like clinical research and work, right? And then only recently, like in the last couple years, started to figure out, oh, I could really change the world if I built a personal brand. And it's been huge, right? Her book, "Forever Strong," hit number 3 on the New York Times. We were a big part of that. And what's powerful about what we're doing is we're not trying to, we're not using tricks, we're not using hacks, we're not using gimmicks. We're trying to take people who are the world's best kept secret And we're trying to amplify the wisdom and the expertise they have to serve people in an, in a way that authentically creates trust and authentically creates fans and followers. But they do need to grow their reach because if people don't know about you, they can't buy from you. And reputation precedes revenue. So you ask that question, who are we working with right now? Of course we work with a lot of speakers and authors and coaches, you know, we call them experts because that's who I am, right? That's— that was my career path. I'm the youngest person to ever be inducted into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame. I hit the New York Times bestseller list when I was 29. You know, I've been speaking since I was 17. So we understand that world. And my wife and I built an 8-figure coaching company that we sold in 2018. So like, we know that world really well. But most of who we work with today are not experts. They are entrepreneurs who are experts. So it's professional service providers, it's doctors, it's lawyers, it's chiropractors, it's financial advisors. It is, you know, health coaches, nutritionists. Like, it's people who have both an expertise and the desire to change the world. But they often are frustrated when they go online because they go, they see people who they go, I know so much more than this person. I have such a deeper heart for serving, but I don't have the audience. And they're realizing, they're going, man, I probably should have paid more attention to this. But the good news is there's a system and there's a process and you can do it and it can work quickly. So that's, that's who we're working with right now.
So what's the biggest misunderstanding about personal branding?
That's such an important question. So let's start by defining what personal branding is not. This is what they all think, right? When you hear that term personal branding, you think logos, colors, fonts, social media, podcast, YouTube. That's what people think.
That's where people get stuck.
That's where they get stuck. And it's like, well, it's all these things and I don't know how to do this and that. No. The way we define personal branding is simply the digitization of reputation.
Hmm.
Personal branding is not really a new concept. It's really reputation. Reputation has been around since the dawn of time. Like, what do people think of when they think of you? What are you a trusted resource on? What problems can you solve for the world? And when you think of it like that, you go, oh, okay. But now all we're going to do is take your reputation and then we're going to digitize it and we're going to amplify it. That suddenly makes sense to people, at least to our people, because it's like we're not just trying to go viral and we're not trying to just get lots of followers and things, because what most of our clients are doing is they're using their personal brand to drive leads to their existing business, whatever is the thing that they're selling, whether they're professional service. Network marketing is also another really popular group. Recently we've been doing a lot. They actually see the value pretty, pretty quickly, right?
Totally.
You've been in that space.
That was like the secret to it that other people were missing is that we built a personal brand throughout that.
Yeah. And think, think about this, right? Like I grew up, my mom sold Mary Kay Cosmetics, which means I know more about makeup than I do about cars.
Well, what about the pink Cadillac?
She never had the pink Cadillac. She did get the red Pontiac Grand Am, which was like a hot car for a minute. And then I went door to door for 5 years when I was in college. That was a network marketing company. And that builds grit, man. It's amazing.
Everyone should have to do it.
Sure. And I mean, network marketing, I believe, is one of the most incredible tools there are— there is on the planet because it's, it's an equal playing field. Yeah, it is a level playing field. It doesn't matter if you're poor or you're rich, if you went to Harvard or you went to, you know, dropped out of school. It's like this equal playing field where the only thing that matters is your character and your work ethic. But there's a lot of trust issues around it because there's been a lot of bad experiences and there's been some not so great companies. And so you go, if you can have people trust you and how do you have people trust you? They trust you, they trust Lori, they trust. And this is, this is a part of what a personal brand is all about. Because if you go, okay, so I have to build trust. So where does trust come from in a very practical sense? First of all, if you, if you just made a list of the people that you most trust in your life. Mm-hmm. Okay. First of all, we trust people who we see often. So we trust our friends and family. We trust the people that we've known our whole life. We trust people. Even if I don't know you, but I see you at the local supermarket or I see you at church every Sunday, there's a level of trust because of just the familiarity of I see you. Same with celebrities. I might not even know your real name, but I've seen you in several movies. So that's why there is trust. We trust people who we see. Then we trust people who we learn from. We trust mentors, we trust counselors, we trust pastors, parents, teachers. So we trust people we learn from. The other thing about the people that we trust is we trust people who we know intimate details about their life, right? So if you look at your list of who you trust the most, you probably know what their kids' names are and you know what their favorite food is. And you know the biggest mistake they've ever made. And you know, you know, the crazy thing they did when they were drunk one time. And, and we know those things. And so tools like social media, which to me is just a tool, it gives people a chance to see you, to learn from you, and to learn intimate details about your life. Now, you might not share every intimate detail about your life, but people that follow me, right? They know I'm a hardcore Bible-thumping Jesus freak, right? And they go, oh, look at— you know, I have this whole apologetics podcast that I did. It's called Eternal Life: 7 Questions Every Intelligent Skeptic Should Ask About Jesus. This has nothing to do with Brand Builders Group, right? We make no money from it. Honestly, some people would say it's a risk to our personal brand to just like put that out there in the open. But I would say I don't think it is.
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Because there's some people who will buy because they believe what we believe. Some people will go, let me go explore this personal side about Rory and see what I think. And even though I don't believe what he believes, I can appreciate the logic and the rationale and the academic support for why he believes this. And that's someone I can trust. Other people will go, this guy is an idiot and a lunatic, and I would never waste any time with him. And that's fantastic.
Perfect.
It's especially good if they hate me, right? If they tell people how much they hate me, that's actually a really good thing. Like, they become a part of the machine that's like, you know, talking about you, right? So there's— that's the old, like, there's no such thing as bad PR. I don't necessarily agree with that, but it's okay to be clear about who you are. It's okay to share what you believe. You'll attract people who believe what you believe, and you'll attract people who don't believe what you believe but can appreciate why you believe what you believe, and they'll appreciate that you share what it is that you believe in.
Mm-hmm.
And it's not— I'm not trying to pick fights. I'm not trying to be polarizing. I'm just saying. And maybe you don't share your religious beliefs or your political beliefs. That's fine. That's— that can be a strategic decision. But people want to know you.
Mm-hmm.
They want to know a little bit about who you are. Now, what I would say is I wouldn't put this in your feed, okay? So, and we're not like the experts on social media, like we're playing like the personal brand strategy game. So it's, you know, social media is a part of it. Book launches are a part of it. Speaking is a part of it. Funnels and marketing automation and ads are a part of it. Sales is a part of it. So we do a lot of those things really well. But when it comes to social, I do think a mistake is don't just make your whole feed everything about who you are because a stranger doesn't care. Your feed should be more about what you do, and then your stories is a good place to work in who you are. And, and so if you want to attract followers on social, you have to be useful to people. And so we talk about the 3 E's, and when you look at people who do well on social, there's pretty much only 3 strategies. You either have to be really entertaining, really encouraging or really educational. I don't particularly happen to be all that entertaining, so that one's out for me. So I focus more on being encouraging and educational, and that's what pretty much anyone can do. And so that's how— that's one of the ways that you— that's one of the ways that you build trust. So all of this comes back to what is personal brand? Digitization of reputation.
Oh, so good. What do you think is the biggest thing that you see that is an obstacle for people, for personal brands?
Yeah, so this is an easy one because almost everybody does this.
Yeah.
The issue is distraction. This is— this is—
feel this.
This is their— this is their problem. All right. So I'm going to share with you one of our frameworks that we talk about in our curriculum. So there's something that we call Sheehan's Wall. Mm-hmm. And we actually named it after a colleague of mine. His name's Peter Sheehan. Peter created this framework originally, and it was kind of like applied to a more corporate audience. We tailored it to personal branding and then we named it after him. He didn't name it after himself. But basically the way that Sheehan's Wall works is that in any market, in any geographic market, any industry, any vertical, there's two groups of people. There are those who are unknown Right? They have, they're living in obscurity. They have this issue of not being known. And then you have people who are well-known. They have notoriety. And it could be world fame, but it could just be like, you're very well known in your town or you're very well known in your industry. And in between these two groups is this huge invisible wall that we call Sheehan's Wall. And what most people do is we look at the people who are unknown, look at the people who are well-known and they go, ooh, I wanna do what they're doing, right? And so they look at Gary Vaynerchuk and they look at The Rock and they look they look at Tony Robbins and they look at Oprah and they go, oh, well, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk talks about wine and sports and music and entertainment and Web3 and business. And Tony Robbins, you know, has Unleash the Power Within and Date with Destiny and business mastery and health and investing and all these different things. And so they talk about lots of different topics and then they get lots of different business models because They go, ooh, The Rock has tequila and he's an actor and he's a comedian and he's a wrestler. And so they're like, well, I could have a clothing line and I could sell day planners and I could do t-shirts. And, and every time, of course, you scroll on social, somebody new is going, the key to making money is to do a membership site. No, you should do courses. No, you should become a keynote speaker. You should self-publish a book. Like, you should do high-end retreats. You should do live events. All of these things are ways you can make money. But we go, okay, I'm going to do all these things. And then you have too many audiences and they're like, well, I'm talking to some of my friends from high school that follow me and then I'm trying to attract new clients, but my colleagues are there. And so we have too many audiences, too many topics, too many revenue business models, like too many revenue streams. And then we're on too many platforms and it's like TikTok and Instagram and, you know, X and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And what happens is when you're trying to do that, you bounce off the wall and you are, by trying to do all of those things, you are creating the very noise you're trying to escape from. You are the problem. And the reason is simple. It's because if you have diluted focus, you will get diluted results.
That is— I'm feeling attacked right now.
I mean, and this is where, you know, so we have a good friend, a mutual good friend in Lewis Howes, right?
Yes.
And Lewis—
That's how we met you.
That's how we met you. Lewis is the reason Brand Builders Group exists. We never planned on starting this company. I was on Lewis's show when my first book hit the New York Times. We became friends. I said, hey man, you should write a book one day. And he's like, oh, I'm thinking about it. And I said, well, I'll tell you everything I know. And so we kind of helped him, friendly. And then we lost touch. And then the day we exited our former company, Lewis called me and said, hey, I know we haven't talked in a while, but I feel like I could use your brain on my business. And I've grown, you know, he had grown to like 30 million podcast downloads and he was doing really well. But he's like, I'm scattered. I have all this, all these people, all this staff. I'm working so hard, like we're making money, but I'm not keeping a ton of money. And so he was like, would you be willing to help? And I was like, well, our calendar's wide open. And so we spent some time with Lewis, and Lewis had 17 revenue streams. We do this exercise called the revenue streams assessment, and he had 17 revenue streams. And part of the reason why is because Lewis fell victim to what I think is some of the stupidest advice on the internet, which is multiple streams of income. So many people talk about you have to have multiple streams of income. But I'm telling you, nobody who got rich got rich from multiple streams of income. Everybody who got rich got rich from one amazing stream of income. They had one thing that worked really, really well, and their initial income came from becoming a master at one thing. And this is how She Hands Wall works. Is you break through the wall with one audience on one topic, with one stream of income on one platform. And then once you break through the wall, then you can expand and do other things. And lots of people, you know, use Gary Vaynerchuk as like a counterexample to this. And they say, well, no, you know, Gary does all these things. And I go, huh, no, Gary is the ultimate example of this because yes, he talks about All sorts of stuff today. But in the beginning, Gary Vaynerchuk talked about one thing, wine, on one platform, YouTube. He did one thing. That's how he broke through the wall. And so what we're helping people figure out is they're figuring out what their one thing should be. And Lewis, Lewis has been so generous in terms of his complimentary nature of us and what we've done. He was on the COVID of, I think, Fortune or Forbes or something, and they had this whole story, and he's talking about us in there. He really gives us a lot more credit than we deserve because I'm not the one who taught Lewis how to do any hack to grow his podcast. I'm not the one who taught him, like, here's how to game the Instagram algorithm. All we did with Lewis was we said, What if instead of doing these 17 things, what if we picked one and went all in on it? And we went through this assessment and there's all these things, and it's not the same answer for everybody. It's not— we can't all be successful doing the same thing. It's like there's a unique set of things that God uniquely created you for. And for Lewis's, case, this podcast that he was doing, he viewed as more like a traffic source. And it was like his real business was courses. That's where his revenue was coming from, was courses at the time. And we took him through this whole thing, this assessment, and we said, oh, the podcast is the thing that has the most natural momentum. What if we shut everything else down? And he had a mastermind that was a multi-seven-figure mastermind. I was teaching at Brainstorm. We were a part of it.
We loved it.
I was getting clients from it.
It's 3 years.
And Lewis and I mutually decided, literally one night, we have to shut this down. And so I was there the next day with him when we decided to shut. And this is to his credit. I mean, he had some big cojones because he just like shut down, walked away from multiple multimillion dollar revenue stream. I remember this. Yeah. And went all in on the podcast. And so here's what happened. So it took him, I think, like 8 years to get to 30 million downloads. So in the next couple of years, we're working together a lot with his team and stuff. He went from 30 million to 500 million downloads in the next 2 years because he was focused. And that's what personal brand strategy is. That's what— we're a strategy firm, right? People are always thinking tactics, but it's really about strategy and it's figuring out what's the right thing for you. And I'll Coming back to Sheehan's Wall.
Yeah.
So if you literally thought about a concrete wall here. Okay. Right. So just take this wall. If we were to take a sledgehammer and we start hitting all different parts of this wall, we're not going to make much progress. But if you start hitting the same spot over and over and over and over, right, eventually you would chip away the paint and then it would crack and then there'd be a divot and then a little section would carve out. And then you would puncture through a hole. And then once you puncture through this hole, you can reach through and pull the entire wall down. And that is how it is. But you have to break through on one thing. And that's what people forget. You can't look at what celebrities do now. You have to look at what they did to get there. This is what Amazon did. Amazon literally sells everything today. But in the beginning, They sold one thing, books. One thing, one product. So we have to figure out what is your one thing.
So what is, what is your uniqueness? And you're making me think, I'm like, oh, I feel like I've, I've done a lot of things for a long time, but I didn't. I really started with one thing. I was encouraging people around like fitness and fear. Like I always talked about it and then started in fitness and I just, there's nothing, there was nothing special or unique about me really. At the time, I was so consistent. I was just so incredibly consistent with my message. And it's like, I didn't even graduate from high school. I didn't have anything that people were like, oh, but you had this or you had that. No, I literally just on Facebook every single day, I was like, I'm just going to talk until I'm blue in the face about this one thing. And then other things came out of, out of that.
You were— is exactly true. You had— you were talking about fitness content. You had a fitness product that you were selling. You were building a team around health and fitness, and that is how you— that's how you broke through the wall.
Yeah, it allowed me to do a lot of other things.
And now— and then you expanded to other things, right? And you and Chris have— you, you, you built relationships. And that's the thing is once you have more money and once you have more team, you can do more things. It doesn't mean you can only do— well, it does kind of mean you can only do one thing, but as your resources grow, you can put your money to work. You can hire people so that one person can focus on running this business or that part of the business, but you, you can't get there by, by doing all the, all the things.
Yeah, I actually feel, and it can happen over and over in your career, I'm like, oh, I feel like I need you right now actually in my life. I'm like, okay, we'll chat. Because you can get to that place where then you can do multiple things, but you need like a through line. So I have all of these different things going on and I know I have a through line, but I'm feeling a little scattered and distracted again. So I know this happens to people over and over in their career because then you can branch out, but you still need that that one thing that really grounds you so that I can go out in the world and just feel like, okay, this is the thing that's grounding all of these things together.
Yeah. I mean, if you think about it just with some common sense, right? You go, if I have 100, let's just say I have 100 units of resource. That's time, money, prayer, attention, relationships, followers, like whatever the resources are. If I have 100 units of resources, and I deploy those across 10 different things. That means each thing has 10 units of resource. What's the likelihood that 10 units of resource on one thing is going to grow up to be something big in a world of competition and noise?
Mm-hmm.
Versus taking my 100 units of resource and putting them all into one thing, knowing full well that almost everyone else in the world is putting 10 units of resource into their things, and I have 100 units of resource into my one thing, right? Brand Builders Group for the last 5 years has become our, like, our sole focus, right? Is we do one-on-one coaching. We know that the business we sold before was a coaching company. It was a different vertical, it was a different topic, but we know that our flagship offering is working with people one-on-one. Lots of people make money with courses. Lots of people make money with, you know, assessments and certifications and license and all these things. But it's like, for us, this is the one thing that we do. And so we're only focused on things that drive that one thing. So we know exactly who to talk to, where to spend our money, where to spend our time. And our team is focused on one thing, especially the smaller your set of resources, the smaller your team, the more important it is to have focus. Because diluted focus is diluted results. And so what's amazing about that is you go, the people who are the most successful in the world, it's not because they're the smartest or the most well-connected or even that they have the most resources. It's because they're willing to make a disciplined choice, a disciplined decision that most people aren't, which is to say, even though I could do all these things, just because I could doesn't mean I should. And so I really need to ask, what's the one thing I should do? And I'll, I'll share with you the, the single greatest piece of personal brand advice I've ever received.
Starting something new isn't just hard, it's also scary. I remember launching my business and this podcast thinking, what if no one buys? What if I say the wrong thing? But I also knew that if I didn't go for it, I would always wonder, and I couldn't live with that. And so I'm so glad that I bet on myself. No matter what happens, And it also helps when you have a partner like Shopify on your side. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. From brands like mine, Glossy, to brands just getting started. Get started with your own design studio with hundreds of ready-to-use templates. Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. Accelerate your efficiency with AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. And get the word out like you have a full marketing team behind you with email and social campaigns wherever your customers are at. And did I mention that iconic purple Shop Pay button? It's why Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet, boosting conversions and reducing abandoned carts. It's time to turn those what-ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com/happy. Go to shopify.com/happy. That's shopify.com/happy.
And this is not a Rory Vaden quote. I, I really wish it was. Um, but I did not come up with this. There's a gentleman named Larry Winget, and I heard him say this early in my career. Larry said, and, and, and the first time I heard this, Lori, I was like, I was like, oh, this is it. He nailed it. I knew. I was like, this is so brilliant. Here's what he said. The goal is to find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others.
Hmm.
Find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others is to figure out what is the one thing that I am most equipped to do, designed to do, and how can I make that of service to the world? Now, Larry was never really in the business of teaching people how to do that. And so when Lewis called us that day, we weren't planning on starting another company. In fact, we were actively not planning on working for a bit. And Lewis said, this is your new business. This is what you guys were born to do. And I remember telling him, I said, Lewis, we don't have a team anymore. Like we just sold like I was like, all my social media was gone, my podcast, my email list, all of our team members. And I was like, and he was like, that's okay. I'm going to have you on the podcast and we're going to tell the whole world that this is like what you do. And so admittedly, that was an unfair advantage to have Lewis Howes as your first client. That's a good strategy to do. But there, even inside of that is a really important lesson. Another one of our mantras around Brand Builders Group is build relationships before you need them. Mm. Build relationships before you need them.
That is so true.
And, you know, you mentioned that we introduce you to people all the time.
Mm-hmm.
That's something that we do. Why? It takes time. It's a massive amount of time, but it adds value to the people we're around. We help them get on shows, other people, you know, get guests for their shows and it adds value. And it's because it always comes back. Right? Like when you— you can't outgive God, you can't outserve the universe. Like it is not the theory of reciprocity, it's the law of reciprocity.
Now we need a choir in the background. It'll just pop up like, hallelujah, hallelujah.
But, but it doesn't always happen transactionally, right? Like you've done so many things for us, you know, hopefully we've done a few things for you.
So many things.
But what's beautiful is there's not a scorecard. We don't keep scoring.
Oh no, I have one.
Oh, okay, maybe. But you don't. But it doesn't always come back directly from the person you helped. Yes. It always comes back.
Always.
It always comes back. And I love how, you know, Chris talks so much about generosity financially. And that's why I love this about you guys, because it is true. It always comes back, but it stems from service.
So what's the first step in finding your uniqueness?
So the first step to finding what you are uniquely created to do is to answer one simple question, okay, with one simple word. And this is the hardest freaking thing you ever have to do with your personal brand, and it is the first step. And the question is, what problem do you solve? In one word. What problem do you solve? And the reason this matters is because what people really spend money on is solving problems.
Yeah.
Right? We think of money in terms of like luxuries, a nice house, a nice car, a nice vacation. But we only spend that money typically if we have extra money. If you have a flat tire, you find the money to fix it. If the water heater goes out, you find the money, right? If your kid gets sick and they got to go to the hospital, you find the money. We find the money to solve problems. So if you are positioned as someone who can help solve a problem, you're no longer— your company, your brand, your product is no longer a luxury. It's a necessity. Now, you can charge luxury prices, but it's a necessity. I must have it. If someone has that problem, they must get it solved. And so your ability to articulate what problem you solve matters tremendously, because if you're not clear on what problem you solve, there's no way that your audience ever will be. They can't be. And even more than that, the likelihood of them being able to transmit your message for you, to refer you to somebody else, is even less. So you have to be crystal clear about what problem do you solve. And some of my favorite examples of this are really recent, you know, like, so here's some not so recent ones, but like Mother Teresa, right? She dedicated her life to solving poverty. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated his life to eradicating racism. Mm-hmm. Brené Brown is one of my favorite recent examples. I don't think Brené Brown ever said, I want to become the highest paid keynote speaker in the world, or I want to be on the, you know, Time magazine Most Influential People. Brené Brown spent her life researching and studying shame. Mm. Brené Brown owns the topic of shame. She has spent decades studying shame. You cannot talk about shame and not mention Brené Brown's name. She owns that. Dave Ramsey has built a multi-nine-figure business. He has 1,000+ employees. A billion podcast downloads, 17 million people listening to him on the radio. And yet he has been saying the same thing on the radio every day for 3 hours for 30 years. And he owns the topic of debt. You may not like Dave Ramsey. You may not agree with him, but you have to respect the fact that you— he owns the conversation around debt and he's been so clear about it and it's been hugely successful. He only has one formula, 7 Baby Steps formula. He gives away the formula for free on the air. Now, if you want the tools to help go through it in the community, that's what you pay for, right? And this is one of the, one of the other content marketing strategies that we say at BBG is people don't pay for information. People pay for organization and application. People don't pay for information. They pay for application. You can teach everything you know for free. Like that's—
and everything we want is online.
It's all online.
Yeah.
Right. So you might as well teach it for free. And it doesn't, it doesn't mean people are less likely to hire you because you taught them for free. It means they're more likely to hire you because what everyone needs help with is not learning it, it's applying it. And so, you know, you still have to buy Dave's, you know, um, you know, whole system, Total Money Makeover, and go through the envelopes and financial peace and all that sort of stuff. But he owns the conversation around debt. And I broke through the wall initially. My, my first book, Take the Stairs, was all about the psychology of overcoming procrastination. And then my second book, my TED Talk, How to Multiply Time, went viral. We got millions of views, and that was all around priority dilution, which was just an advanced form of procrastination. So I spent the early part of my career studying and analyzing the psychology of procrastination. Brand Builders Group has gone from zero to eight figures in 5 years with no investors, no debt, no huge capital source. We've done that because we solve one problem: obscurity. Obscurity. People who are unknown who want to become more well-known. And we have been really, really clear about obscurity. We created a framework, Sheehan's Wall, around obscurity, right? The people living in obscurity. And That makes it easy to transmit. But if I talk about 100 things and I have 100 topics and 100 products and 100 different things I'm involved in, it doesn't transmit. Like, the message literally doesn't transmit as clearly. It's muffled. It's diluted. And most people cannot answer this question: What problem do you solve in one word? And if you're not clear on that, then you're going to struggle to articulate that to anyone and they're going to struggle to understand what you're doing. And so that's the first question. We consider that the genesis. The second question is, who do you solve that problem for? And until you get clear on the who, everything else is muddled. You know, Simon Sinek, I love Simon Sinek. I don't know if you've ever read Simon Sinek. He's my favorite favorite, one of my favorite leadership authors. And, you know, he famously said, start with why. And I think, I guess for companies, you know, maybe that's a good thing. But with personal brands, I don't think you start with why. You start with who. And the moment you're clear about who you're talking to, you know exactly what to say. You know where to find them. You know what they're struggling with. You know what it feels like. You know what they're going through. And by the way, for many of us, our why is a who.
Hmm.
Our why is a who, right? The reason we work so hard is, you know, for our kids or for our family or, you know, to give to other people who are in need or whatever it is. For most of us, our why is a who anyways. But even from a tactical business standpoint, you have to know who you're serving. Otherwise, you don't know what to say and you don't know where to say it and you don't know what to sell. But once you're clear on the who and people struggle with this and they go, well, I want to, you know, I want to help single moms and I want to help, you know, teachers and I want to help like this person and that person. But there is a secret here and there is a shortcut. And so normally the Brand Builders Group experience in a, in a functional sense, we have 14 different 2-day experiences and they're on all different topics, right? You know, writing books, selling books, writing speeches, becoming, you know, getting paid to speak, Driving lead generation and, you know, all these different podcasting, different, different topics that we talk about. But the flagship one, the first one is called Finding Your Brand DNA, which is where we help people find their uniqueness. And it's a 2-day experience. And I know people listening go, I don't have 2 days, you know, here. Is there a shortcut? Is there a secret? And, and there is. And we didn't know this when we started the company, but we know it now because we've identified this pattern after working with with a couple thousand people and taking a couple thousand people through this process. And I'll tell you what the shortcut is. The shortcut is realizing for all of us, you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. You're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. There's lots of things that you could do, But the thing that is your uniqueness, the thing that is the shortest, most guaranteed path to clarity and focus and breakthrough is to serve the person you once were. Why? Because no one understands that person more than you, right? And this is why personal branding made sense for us, right? I remember being 17 years old in an auditorium with a room, you know, watching all these speakers on stage going, How do you get to be the person on stage, right? I remember walking through the airport, looking at the books on the shelves, going, how do you get your book on this shelf? And how do you get that New York Times bestseller burst on the COVID of your book? And, you know, and I just, I felt always like I had this dream to go like, I want to help people, I want to serve people. And so, we understand what what that person is like. That's true for all of us. And it— this not only gives you clarity for your business, it gives you purpose for your life because you realize every single piece of pain you've ever experienced, every obstacle that you've been faced with was about preparing you and shaping you into the person that you one day needed to become so that you could reach back and help other people going through that. And so the question is, what challenge have you conquered? What obstacle have you overcome? What setback have you survived? What tragedy have you triumphed over? Whatever that is, is our— this is how we train our strategist team. Is, you know, we ask people all these questions and they tell us their life story and they're like, why are we talking about all this? And because we go, because that's where the magic is. That's where your uniqueness lies. And so, if you can ask yourselves those questions, you're going to find your uniqueness quickly.
I just feel like everyone needs to listen to this podcast at least 10 times. I'm not kidding. I'm sitting here going, I'm going to go back and listen listen to this again and do everything that you just mentioned. So for somebody listening who's like, okay, I can tell that this would absolutely be the thing, but maybe I'm having a little bit of fear around— am I someone— like, could I do this? Am I, am I worthy of this? Do you ever have people who join your program and they're like, I don't know, I've got a lot of fear around it?
All of them. All of them. And, and by the way, we will do the first call with everybody. Yeah, for free.
Yeah, you guys are amazing. That is incredible.
Thank you. And it's, uh, if you go to freebrandcall.com/LoriHarder, um, you can, you can fill out a form there and we'll, we'll just talk to you, right? And we'll talk you through your fear and we'll tell you, right? We'll tell you, we'll tell you if now is not the right time to do your free call, uh, you know, save it for later, or we'll tell you like, no, you should do this now. And then we'll talk to you and we'll go, you know, maybe some of your fears are rational, maybe they're not, and and we'll show you, here's our whole formula. Like, we'll lay out the whole system. Like, this is what we do. And some people may decide to work with us. Most people will not. But if you, if you have this calling and some of this is speaking to you, you should, you should request a call.
Yes.
With us, because you should. We'll talk to you. And, and everybody has fear, Lori. They all do. Even, I mean, even, even the biggest names in the business. Because if you don't have fear, first of all, it means you're not stretching for something significant. And no matter what level you get to, you always are going to continue. If you want to grow, you got to be stretching yourself. I mean, this is something from my, my most famous quote, probably from my first book, Take the Stairs, is that success is never owned. Success is rented and the rent is due every day. And it's, you know, so you're always stretching. So there's, there's always fear, right?
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Fear is a part of the equation. You want to have fear. You just don't want to let fear make the decisions for you. So fear is actually a sign that you're on the right track. But the other thing is that if you feel fear, it's because you're being self-centered. Fear is a very self-centered concept. We feel fear when we go, am I smart enough? Is anyone going to listen to me? Am I going to look stupid? Like, I don't know if I have what it takes to figure this out. Somebody else has already done this. Like, I'm not going to be as good as them. It's all I, I, I, I, I. And the secret formula is that that there is no fear once the mission to serve becomes clear. There is no fear once the mission to serve becomes clear, right? If you, if you think about, you're driving down the road and you see a bad car accident and there's a car flipped over and you're the first person there on the scene. If you walk over to the scene to help someone, you're not thinking about, how does my hair look, right? Like, does my breath stink? Like, do these pants make my butt look big? You're not thinking about that. Why? Because you're going to help someone. You're going to serve someone. And that's what's magic. The magic, the magic superpower here is that service is the antidote to fear. And the moment I think about helping the person on the other side of the camera is the moment I stop worrying about what the person on this side of the camera feels like because I'm not focused on me. I'm focused on them. And that is the power. And people feel that, right? People can tell if I'm talking to the camera trying to make myself famous or if I'm insecure or if it's all about me. They also can feel, right? Humans are incredibly intuitive beings, right? We can sense when someone is serving their self-interest We also can sense and especially notice, it's tremendously rare when you meet someone, you go like, this person's giving so much to me and I don't feel like they need anything back or they want anything back. That's the most powerful place to be in, right? One of the reasons why I think everyone should be rich is because once you're rich, you no longer compromise your values. Like you don't have to compromise your integrity. Like once you have enough money to pay for your own things, you can genuinely dedicate your life to service. And because you have the luxury of having your own needs met, and that's powerful. What's not powerful is to need a sale so desperately that you have commission breath and people, you know, like they can smell it all over you. Like you're just trying to get something from me. You need something from me. And that's where fear lives. But fear doesn't coexist with service, right? I mean, you think about firemen, right? These heroes who, literally run into building— burning buildings. Are they scared? Yeah, probably. Do they hesitate? No. Why? Because somebody in there needs them. All of us have that chance to do it, and most of us don't have to risk our life in order to be able to do it. We just have to overcome a little bit of insecurity and go, quit worrying about if your camera looks the right way or your lighting is right. Right. You should do those things to the extent you can. But that's not the magic, right? The secret is not what camera do you use? It's not what filter do you use? It's not how many hashtags do you use? It's not what terms you post in SEO. It's do you have a heart to serve and do you feel a calling to go out and help someone? If you do, you should lean into that because we believe that that is God's divine design of your humanity, right? If something breaks your heart and makes you sad, if something pisses you off and makes you angry, if there's an injustice that you see in the world that you go, I hate that this exists, lean into that because God hardwired you that way. There's a reason why that thing that breaks your heart, it breaks your heart for a reason, because you're the person who's supposed to step up and frickin' do something about it. So do something about it and get past your own ridiculous, like, what's the right outfit to wear? And that's the heartbeat, right? And when you listen to Ed, Ed Mylett is a good example, right? And, you know, I've been so fortunate to work with Ed, right? And it amazes many of my clients. I totally still fangirl over them. And Ed is one of those people, right? And you go, Ed doesn't need your money.
Right?
Ed doesn't need any more confidence. Ed doesn't need any more followers. He had all that long before he started his personal brand. And the power of listening to him is going, he is still on fire to help people. Why? And this is the other thing that's amazing. Service is the one source of motivation that never goes away. It's the healthiest form of motivation. If you're motivated to make money, I know you guys have been there. You know, I grew up poor. I was raised by a single mom. We didn't have much. My mom had been divorced twice. She had 2 abortions and had 2 kids from 2 different biological fathers by the time she was 23 years old. I'm actually interviewing her on my podcast for Mother's Day.
Oh my God.
She's going to tell me a story. That's just going to be— which is cool. But you start out going, man, I really want to make money. But you start to realize, especially if you're debt-free, you don't really need much money to, to, to, to feel like you have money. Like most of feeling like you have money is like ordering whatever you want on the menu and not paying attention to the price. Like stop, you know, not worrying about the gas prices, not, you know, shopping wherever you want and buying your clothes. It's most of us, you don't need private jets and yeah. You know, islands and stuff. And so money eventually isn't that great of a motivator. And money, you know, chasing money is a problem as the primary motivation because it tends— you sometimes compromise the other things. And fame is that way. If you're chasing fame, a lot of people who are chasing fame honestly end up becoming jerks. And, you know, that's one of the other things I love about network marketing is you kind of become famous inside of that world because it's like if you're famous inside your company, like at a young age, you get exposed to people walking up to you with that look in their eyes, like, you know, almost like you're a god or something, like, help me and show me. And I'm really grateful that I got exposed to that early on and, and, and realized, oh, you know, that, that's not a healthy thing to chase, but service is a healthy thing to chase. And you're not going to get burnt out when you're serving people. You're not going to get get, you know, you might get tired, but you're not going to get burnt out. You're not going to get bored if you're serving people.
Yeah.
And you, you also, you, you don't have as much rejection when you're serving people, right? Like, if I'm selling something or if I'm achieving, there are wins and there are losses. But if I'm serving someone, there's only wins. There's only wins. Yeah. And so service is, is, is the magical secret antidote to overcoming fear. And we just don't hear about it enough.
Yeah. You have me ready to run through a wall.
Come on.
Yeah, like, seriously, like, I am going to go back and listen to this over and over. And I'm going to text you and tell you when I do. You guys, Guys, you can literally just apply what was in this podcast and you would have a completely different life, business, level of fulfillment. But the cool thing that you had mentioned, and the truth about it, is we pay for integration, like someone who can actually help us really not only embody it but get it, you know, to work and get it out into the world. And that's what you guys do.
So again, We can book our free call at freebrandcall.com/LoriHarder. Make sure you use the forward slash Lori Harder, freebrandcall.com/LoriHarder, so we know it came from you. And the last thing I would just say, Lori, is that if, if someone's listening and they feel that calling on their heart, that tug to share a message, we believe that the calling on your heart that you feel is the result of a signal that's being sent out from somebody else who needs you.
Yes.
And that person actually needs you way more than you need them. Right? Like, if you're feeling like, I need to talk about this or something, it's because somewhere there is someone searching and begging and pleading and quite literally, possibly on their hands and knees praying for answers to questions that, you know, like the back of your hand because you have already walked through it. And that's why you're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. Because when you see that person, you go, oh yeah, it's a dark— it's a dark place. But if you follow me, this is the straight line right through it. And when that person buys from you, you, you don't just make a sale, you change their life. They're more grateful that they got to buy from you than you are happy that you sold them something because you're solving an actual problem in the world. And, and that's why I think just the magic of the world we live in and the tools that are available today are more abundant than ever before. So thank you for modeling that. And thank you for being so generous in your life and with your platform and all the things that you share. I admire you and Chris so much and I love the difference you make in the world. So thanks for letting me be a little part of it here.
Oh my God, stop. That was on camera. Okay, great. Thank you so much. You are one of the most generous human beings I know. You have been so generous with your connections of people and the way that you intro people. Like, my life has changed by the way you intro me. That is— it's truly like how much you love people has impacted our lives and you inspire me. To make other people feel the way that you make us feel. So thank you for all that you do. Clarity in your mission is everything because without it, we feel like we're just walking in a circle purposeless, and, and that's a really lonely life. So thank you for helping us get out there in such a big way. So you guys, I'm so, so grateful for you as well. Go check out Lori, go book your free call, and until next time, earn your happy. Bye everyone.
