How to Build an Unforgettable Personal Brand | Chris Do | 148

Personal brand is about who you are, understanding your voice in this world, your values, and being able to communicate that. It's devoid of you trying to make money.

Chris Do is an expert when it comes to personal brand. He's an Emmy Award-winning designer and founder of The Futur, which he's grown to 2.8 million subscribers on YouTube.

If you want to develop your personal brand, you need to know what your keyword is, what you want to be associated with. So when people think of this word, they think of me. The vast majority of people who speak about personal brand, the 99.9% of them, I'd argue they're not working on their personal brand at all. What are they working on? They're working on their marketing funnel, calling it a personal brand.

It actually all starts with figuring out who you are outside of what you've built.

Do you feel like you know who you are? Your identity? Um, can we get vulnerable?

Yeah, we can do that. Partway through this episode, he actually turns the interview around and he starts coaching me.

I'm asking the questions now.

Yeah, you're in charge.

I want to write in your notebook. I want to map some of this in case something comes out.

This was one of the most special episodes I've ever recorded on the show, and it's because of how Chris shows up and the things that he teaches for you to change How you show up as a creator.

Have you shared this before?

Uh,

oh my gosh, this is going to be a juicy episode. You said we're not going to go that deep, but we're going to go real deep. Okay.

No, actually, I see it the complete opposite.

Thanks for sharing that story and for being real with me.

Thanks for drawing it out.

Oh, we're not done with the drawing yet.

Chris, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Nathan.

Something that you talk a lot about is personal brand.

Mhm.

And I know a lot of people, and we probably both do, who put tons of effort into their personal brand and don't feel like they're getting attention and eyeballs on it, like, and, and that it's actually resonating. You have this phrase that I've heard you say of unbrand yourself.

Yes.

What does that mean?

Okay, well, I, I will tell you the origin of where that idea or word comes from. A friend of mine, he's a luminary in the design space. His name is Brian Collins. He has an agency, Agency of the Year kind of stuff. And he, he has a playful way of talking about things. He's like, you You know, it's not called blanding, it's branding. And he makes fun of all these other big multimillion-dollar agencies who are doing very high-end brand work. And he goes, it's so boring, blah, blah, blah, it's all the same. Right. And he wants to inject personality, humor, fun, a point of view. And so I keep thinking about that. And then Hard Stop, I look at people and how they show up online, and we're all kind of insecure about who we are in real life. Even more so online. So what we do is we follow certain templates or mandates, so to speak, from people who tell us this is how we're supposed to be. There's an averageness, a sameness that we aspire towards, which is really strange to me. And so everyone is just blending in. So we need to stand out. And to summarize what branding is, is differentiation. How are you different than your competitors? 'Cause that's the only thing people remember. An undifferentiated product in the market space is called a commodity,

right?

If I can't tell the difference between one phone to the next, I just buy purely on specs and price at that point, and you've lost the battle. The, the ongoing debate— not debate, but the observation— is Apple has a brand, Dell doesn't. Because for Dell, all we do is we look at the price point and the features. There's no feeling. We have no loyalty to them. We don't go and extol their virtues to everybody else. We don't wear Dell T-shirts. We don't put their stickers on our other products. We don't brag to our friends. We don't shun our friends who don't use Dell products. Dell sells a machine, a very good machine at a great price point, and I'm appreciative of that, but they don't really have a brand. So people who are out there trying to create content, I think they fall into Dell camp— serviceable, highly forgettable. So what we have to do is we have to lean into what makes us different. We have to unblend ourselves.

I saw someone, I saw this play out on X the other day where someone was like, look, I need a new monitor. I can buy the Apple monitor for whatever, $2,500 or something. Or I can buy the Dell monitor that's the same size, same specs. You know, there's probably some differences, but to them, you know, they're comparing specs. Or I can buy this for like $700. Like, which one should I buy?

Right.

And if you looked in the comments, probably a third of it was about specs and a third, like a third or more was about like, identity, brand, who you are, like, you know, that sort of thing. I was like, you know, people would say things like, well, you make lots of money in your business, like, buy the Apple, you know, like, and all of that. And you realize, like, you can afford it. All Dell has going for it is specs and price, right? And that was the only thing.

Yeah. Are you familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs?

Yeah.

Okay. We talk about that. And I think it's withstood the test of time that we can kind of almost say that there's some truth to this, right? At the bottom is survival. What's at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs?

Self-actualization.

What does that even mean?

I don't know,

right? It's kind of a little bit strange, right? Yeah. And I think it's to achieve your human potential or something like that. And it's a very difficult concept to understand, but if I were to describe it to you differently, maybe it'll be more memorable and we can see some truth in that. Hormozi talks about the 3 things that you need to sell to people: health, wealth, and relationships. Make me stronger, faster, better. Let me live longer. Make my skin perfect. That would be under the health category.

Yeah.

Above that is wealth. Wealth is like generate more money, give me more freedom. And then above that is relationships and help me to improve my relationships with my partner, with my, with my spirituality or something like that. And there's something there, my community. And then he stops there. Like, no, there's more to that. There really is. And I think he talks about it, but he didn't build into it. So at the bottom is health, above that is wealth, above that is relationships. And then I think he's just missing 2 categories: status, which is I'm signaling to people all the time about who I am,

right?

And, and above that is identity. Who am I? So it maps perfectly to Maslow's hierarchy of needs because at the bottom, survival, health, And at the top, self-actualization or identity. Who am I? So I think that's the big question of our lifetime is, who am I in this lifetime? Did what I do— did it make a difference in this world? Do I matter? I think when we fast forward to 100 years from now, when you're almost ready to die, you ask yourself, did I matter? And if the answer is no, it's kind of a sad existence. And so the thing about status and identity ties into branding. So when I buy an Apple monitor, it's not like I need specs or I need to have a screen. It's because, well, who am I? Am I a person of taste? Am I successful enough to afford a luxury like a monitor that costs 3 to 4 times as much as the other comparable monitor? I am. And I'm an aesthetic person, so I care about what things look like, not just how they function. And there's a joy in the moments in which you unpack, open, and look at this thing every single day. That you remind yourself, I did it,

right?

And I proved the naysayers wrong, and I can have these things. And you could take this across the spectrum, from water to pizza to cars. Everything you do or buy says something about you. And this is how we're signaling to other people our status and our identity. It's a really important thing for us to start understanding, because we've moved into a time in which there's abundance, and we live longer, we have more things, and there's less to kill us. And so we start to move towards the higher, the top of the tier of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Is there a brand that you can think of either as an individual or, you know, like a corporation that has made that shift from, you know, the Dell to the Apple?

Target.

Okay.

Target's a great case study.

Tarjay.

Yeah, Tarjay. I remember growing up not having a lot of money.

Yep.

So there are discount big box stores that if you were seen in, you would signal to other people your parents aren't doing well. Like for us it was Kmart.

Yeah.

And my parents and, you know, I'm an immigrant. Being immigrants, we wanna bargain. We don't wanna pay for brand. It doesn't make any sense. And it was always a running joke in junior high or elementary, like, oh, you guys shop at Kmart? I'm like, god dang it, we do. Yeah, you're so right. It's so shameful. The blue light special, like how do we get around this? And you know, my mom's sage advice was, why are you so afraid of being seen at Kmart? Because if they see you, you have equal ammunition. I'm like, mom, that's just not how it works. I know that's logical.

Oh, the circle point is like— Yeah, it's like—

Yeah, we're both at Kmart. We're both at Kmart. Right? It's like, how can you tell people? Because how did you see me? Right? But in my emotional, undeveloped brain, I'm like, it don't matter. Now people are going to know. And Target is Kmart with brand. Okay, if you look at Kmart, Kmart pushes discount, best prices. Same thing with, um, what is that other Walmart? Yeah, it's always the best prices, like the Blue Light Special or whatever they're promoting, a smiley face guy.

Yeah,

Target went a different direction. They're saying like, like affordable quality or affordable luxuries. That's what they want to be able to create. So instead of just pumping out cheap OEM white-labeled things, they partner with legitimate designers, architects, industrial designers, and people with a brand name. And then they are able to use their distribution, their manufacturing power, their buying power to get you at something that is a higher quality for a decent price.

Right.

So they shift the emphasis away from it being cheap to being good and affordable. Which changes the narrative.

If you walk through, you know, I'm thinking about seeing something from like Chip and Joanna Gaines in the home goods section at Target. Right. And it's well branded, it's well positioned. It's not very expensive.

No.

You know, it's probably more than the equivalent whatever item would be at Walmart or that sort of thing. But it has design and taste and all of that to it. And it's partnered with someone who has brand.

And they've done this for decades. We're aware of it now. But when I was in school, go to Target, They had famous architect Michael Graves design a set of home goods. So Michael Graves doesn't do this, he's an architect, but they got his perspective. And I think they've been doing this for a really long time, and you can see this. And then they did the thing with, I think, Martha Stewart, or, you know, they, they bring in big name brand people who have a sense for design. Hopefully it's not just them signing off on things they have no involvement in. We hope.

Right.

But in theory, you buy a higher quality product at a good price. So they— there's an expression that good design doesn't cost more. It's, it's bad design that costs more because it doesn't work. And so what you're paying for is the idea. But the manufacturing, the amount of plastic or wood that goes into products, literally the same. So you don't have to reinvent all that stuff, right?

Yeah. It's interesting as it goes back to identity, as you're talking about like what kind of person shops in each place or all of that. Thinking about Kit as a brand, something that we've tried to do a lot of is some of the other players in the space are very much about like make money online, like starting to get into some get rich quick vibes, right? And we've always— obviously email and a newsletter is a fantastic way to make money, but you'll never hear us say make money. You'll always hear us say earn a living, right? Or you will always talk about the value provided. Right, as a creator on Kit, all of our messaging is about you serve your audience and then you're taken care of as part of that, rather than like your audience is an ATM where it's when you just need some money, you launch something and go from there.

Yeah.

'Cause I always think about Seth Godin's line of like, people like us do things like this. And so we really try and differentiate a Kit creator from any other platform.

Yeah, it's hard when you start to sell into— excuse me— wealth. Then you're in the second tier. You should strive to move towards status and identity. And so there's the 5 whys. Why do you do something? And if you keep asking that question, you'll find a commonality between the people who are your customers and the people who are not. And so people sell features usually, and then they move to benefits, which may be what you're talking about, which is earn a living. Right. But then we would need to move towards meaning. So it's like, why is it important for you to earn a living?

Because you need to take care of your family.

That would be one. What else?

Yeah, uh, anything you want to buy. Okay. Home. Yeah, yeah, all of those things.

Yeah. What else? Anything else? Why do we need to earn a living?

Uh,

and sometimes they're not always good reasons, by the way. Sometimes they're bad reasons, and it's, it's a good reason that it's bad. But

a good reason that it's bad? Yeah, our whole society runs around money, and so Needing the— I mean, that is, that is the currency that everyone operates in.

Yeah. So we could say something like, make your ex regret leaving you.

Right.

That could be a reason. That's a bad reason. That's a good reason.

Yeah. Show up to your 10-year, 20-year high school reunion driving some fancy car and everyone's like, you know.

Yeah.

You know, trying to prove someone wrong or— That's right. Right.

So we have to look at people's motivations like, Prove your brother-in-law wrong, or maybe go on that dream vacation that you've always wanted and stop cutting coupons.

I mean,

there's a lot of different human motivations. So we can say we're gonna earn a living and in specific campaigns, you can talk a little bit more about this deeper idea, right?

'Cause there's a huge status element to what you spend, right? Especially now with social media where, The vacation for a lot of people is not actually about, am I enjoying the time in the moment where I am? It's about, do I have the right photo to post to signal that I'm the kind of person who can spend a month in Bali doing whatever to then get me the brand deals so that I can, you know, whatever else?

Yeah, I think that is a different kind of status. That is pretty hollow.

Yeah.

And we know that. So it's like the joke is like, did you work out today if you didn't post on social? Of course you did. But, you know, we got to make sure everybody knows that we're at the box gym or whatever and we're doing what we need to do. So can I get back to one of the questions you were asking about? Like, a lot of people work on their personal brand and it's not going anywhere.

Yep.

I'd argue they're not working on their personal brand at all.

What are they working on?

They're working on their marketing funnel, calling it a personal brand. Because everything put out is a disguised, not well disguised ad for a product or service they sell. And this is what they do because they follow and emulate what everyone else is doing. Every piece of content is a pitch to like, and if you want my downloadable, if you want this, you want that. It's always that. In order for me— okay, let me step back.

Yeah.

Um, personal brand and the word brand has become quite popular. I think marketing is great. I think sales is great. I think funnel design is great. but it don't sound that sexy right now. And so those same people have decided to call it this new buzzword, which is personal branding.

Yep.

They're really just teaching you conversion design, learning how to do the customer journey, about how to run marketing campaigns. It's really not about personal brand. But I find that the vast majority of people who speak about personal brand, the 99.9% of them, are in this space where they're really just using the words advertising, marketing, funnel design, conversions, and they're using the wrong label.

Okay.

'Cause maybe they're ashamed of what they do or they're just chasing the next buzzword. So in that church of personal branding, I am an outlier. I'm a blasphemer. I'm the Antichrist.

Yeah.

Okay. This is who I am because I'm thinking personal brand is about who you are, understanding your voice in this world, your values, and being able to communicate that. It's devoid of you trying to make money. And so I think they're going on one pursuit without understanding what that pursuit is. They're executing the wrong plan, following the wrong leaders, and and that's really the problem. People come to me in my workshops; it's personal branding. Like Chris, how do we sell more? Like I'm sorry, friend. There's no refunds, but that's not what we're going to do here. We're going to get into your shadow word. We're going to understand your voice phrase, understand who you are in this lifetime, lean into your vulnerabilities, and to be able to be. able to surface them and share them with the world because right now you're just masking.

Well, so that's something I wanted to ask about is that a lot of people think that personal brand is about what they post, right? And I've heard you say that like all the real work in personal brand is internal.

It is.

Like, and you mentioned shadow work, you mentioned like, let's dive into that. What do you mean?

Well, all right. Oh my gosh, this is gonna be a juicy episode. You said we're not gonna go that deep, but we're gonna go real deep. Okay, I think there's this period in your lifetime, I would guess between 3 years old and 9, that you are who you really are in this lifetime. And through a lot of socializing and conditioning, that person is washed away and you become very homogenized with society. I'll give you an example. Let's say you like to pick your nose. I know I'm saying that's who you are, that's not your identity, but that's what you do. And somebody say, yeah, it's gross, don't do that. And then you talk really loud. Let's use our inside voice. So the entire process of growing up into adulthood is someone Shaving off all the edges and sanding you down until you're just like shiny river stone. Cool. Or river rock. And then you get out into the world and then you enter a next phase, which is, I finished college, I'm going to work. Guess what? We wear the corporate uniform. It's jacket and tie. It's only casual Fridays. This is what you need to do. This is how you say things. This is how you move up in the world. So we're very much trained by society to fit into a very specific box. And we've learned very early on If we're different, we're weird, and we're doing things, they label you weird, different, a freak. Get away from me, freak. Right? Like, if you're into chess and everyone's into football, they're like, you're a nerd loser. And they'll say much, much less nice things. Much worse things. You're gonna be horrible. And all you're searching for is belongingness, the relationships, third tier. And you're like, this is terrible. I don't wanna do this. This is too painful for me because you don't have identity yet. Mm-hmm. And so you keep pretending to be someone long enough and you forget who the real you is. So my task, I think my purpose in this life is to be able to help individuals like yourself remember who you were. Mm-hmm. 'Cause this is the pursuit of your lifetime. And to be able to lean into all that stuff that you thought was so weird that you've put it away into a little box and you hid it into the attic of your mind and you never look at it again. So much so that it scares you to see it. It really does. We're so trained to make other people happy, to fit in, that we don't know what it means to be ourselves anymore.

So yeah, you talked about how, how everyone's born weird, right? There's all those—

We're born us. We're labeled weird.

Yeah, exactly. So what does it look like first to do the work to bring that back out and to be like, oh, I actually don't need to dress the same, act the same, like grab for belonging wherever, you know, someone might offer a single shred of it. And then like first to do that work, and then second to actually show that outwardly when it comes out in something like brand or the things you're standing for.

Here's the interesting thing. Do you mind me asking how old you are?

I'm 35.

Very young man.

I just turned 36.

Damn, 35. I'm 54. So if we invert the ages a little bit, you're just still a year younger than me, which is, Not cool. I'm just gonna say that. Okay. Do you feel like you know who you are? Your identity? Um, can we get vulnerable?

Yeah, we can do that. Let's

go. She's looking at me like, we gotta go here. The phone's blowing up, but ask him this.

Exactly. Let's do it.

I'm asking the questions now.

Yeah, you're in charge. Yeah. Do I feel like I know who I am? Yeah. Um, I— it's a constant thing that I'm working on.

Okay.

But I know a lot of things that matter to me.

Okay. That's an interesting way of you answering that question. What percentage of knowingness do you think you're at? Because you're like, I'm trying to figure things out. I know it's impossible to say. Yeah.

I mean, I feel like— so it's one of those things where— so my oldest is a teenager now. And so it's always thinking about, you know, like no one knows as much as a teenager, right? You know? And so we're in that phase and watching it. And so I feel like the more I know, or the more I understand, the less I know. And so, I don't know, we'll say 20, 25%.

Okay. That's a fair number.

Yeah.

Okay. And so as you're searching for this, and I'm curious if there was a life event that happened where you started to feel more yourself.

Yeah, I got shingles. Got super— at how old was I? 24. And—

I got it last year. Keep

going. And yeah, and then I ended up, I had all of my identity tied up in what I accomplished.

Okay.

And I was very good at what I did, right? And so, you know, I was 24, making a quarter million dollars a year. I had an audience, I had all these things, productive, all of that. And after getting shingles and being on painkillers from that, I lost my ability to work. And I would sit down at my computer and my brain would just not function. And I talk a lot about like flywheels and virtuous cycles. Everyone forgets those spin the other way too, right? Yeah. There is a vicious cycle there. And I had so much of my identity tied up in what I could accomplish that when I would sit down and couldn't get a task done in front of me, then it just spiraled from there. And so the worst I felt about myself, obviously, The, the worse I performed and all of that. So I ended up spending at least 6 months, like, deeply depressed. And then— and it probably took me 2 years to come out of that.

Okay. Yeah, that's really interesting.

That was a transformative moment.

Not the answer I expected, but a good one.

Okay.

A really good one, because a lot of people, and I would say, like, oftentimes men more, We form our identities around the things we do, our utility into the world. And the society tells us this, right? It's like you are more attractive as a potential mate because you're more useful. You have more utility. And so you don't have to be the smartest or the best looking.

You can make money. But if you can do things, remodel the house. Yes, you can fix the toilet. Yeah, exactly.

It's basic things and unclog the drain, right? You're useful. And that's what we identify as. And so when you strip that away, your job, your title, well, who am I? And that becomes a real dilemma. I've noticed that people, as they get older, and then again, when they retire and they don't do anything anymore, their life value, their life force starts to diminish really fast.

Oh yeah.

They have no more purpose and they haven't developed like real hobbies or real relationships.

A lot of entrepreneurs, when they sell their companies, end up— They're lost. In this place, yeah.

Right. And they will start to deteriorate their health. I'm seeing it in my own father. kind of watching in somewhat real time is that once he retired, his body's starting to fall apart. I'm like, dang, what happened? Because he was this vital person who'd like, I'll fix this, I'll carry this. And now he's a lot weaker. I know that's just part of aging, but I think he's lost a little bit of his purpose and his identity. And this is why I think it's so important to figure out who you are. Okay? And so a lot of times people will say, I want to work on my personal brand. I'm like, well, who are you? Well, I'm the plumber. I'm the electrician. I'm the computer science guy. I'm like, no, no, no, it's not what you do. Who are you? It's a question that we're afraid to answer because we don't know. It's like staring into the void, and that unknowingness creates great anxiety within us. But I think that's a pretty good sign to go and shine the light on the darkness to see what's there. So outside of you running your company, winning your awards, the accomplishments, and the the zeros you've added to your account, who are you? Who are you in this lifetime? I always screw this part up because I mix the two, and usually when I'm doing a presentation. It's this Picasso quote. Of course, one of my favorite artists of all time, like a real maverick person in being able to do what he does, said something like this. Purpose of life is to discover your gift, and the meaning is to give it away. The meaning of life.

Hmm.

So we have to figure out what our gift is. And we think it's something we have to invent or to find. But I'll add to that quote saying, you are the gift. I believe each and every single one of us is born by design or by divine being to have a unique combination of things that make you really powerful. But what we do is we forget those unique, interesting things, and then we conform to what everybody else is doing. So we're purposely handicapping ourselves. I'll give you an example. My nephew, he's autistic. And when he— when we didn't know at the beginning, because he was like, he's not looking at me, some interesting behavior going on. Or he'll come up, he gives you a weird sideways hug, he doesn't really touch you. So there's some kind of physical Challenges there, or he'll punch you. I'm like, bro, what are you doing? You know? But once we knew he was autistic, we're like, okay, we can talk to him very differently. And it turns out, like recently, he and his friends won a math champion, or they came in second place in the district championship at math. I'm like, damn. So we measure him against what society considers normal and good and virtuous. He's doing terrible. But if we just look at, he's really into science, He knows all the planets and geography. He's really freaking great with numbers. I'm like, yeah, that's his gift. And so the the job, the duty of all parents is to forget about what you want and what you didn't accomplish in your life. Stop trying to live vicariously through your children. Stop fixing your mistakes through them, but to honor them for who they are and to say like, I need to support whatever this is and not to have any preconceived ideas. And I think that's the beautiful part, and that's the challenge of parents to say. I had ideas of success for my children. I gotta let that go because they get to live their life. I had my shot and I need to break the cycle.

Right. How do you answer that question for yourself of who are you?

Don't turn to— I'm asking the question. What are you doing?

We'll take turns talking about that.

Who am I? I see my identity as a person who observes things and thinks about it. Maybe not as profound as Seth or Seth Godin or somebody else, but I think about things and I I want to be able to express these ideas in as many forms as I want. Sometimes it helps people, sometimes it does nothing for them. But I'm on this pursuit of being the artist, and it's an identity I've denied myself for a really long time because I'm a designer and there's a big difference between design and art. But now, as I'm creating content, I do it for myself.

What's the difference between design and art?

And artists— and I love this— art is an invitation to look at the world from a different perspective. And artists have emotions and feelings about things they create, whether it be music or sculpture or painting. And if you experience a similar emotion, it's good art.

Okay.

So if we look at it like that, design is, is a process of achieving an outcome for a specific goal. So it's not about what I want to say about the world. It's like, you have a problem, I need to solve that problem. You're trying to get this kind of customer, or you're trying to create this kind of feeling in your brand. This is what I try to design for you. The mistake that designers make is they think they're artists. It's about my vision, my perspective, and that's very egocentric. I'm trying to help you solve a problem. And so as a guide to an ultimate outcome, I have my opinions, but it doesn't really matter. It matters what you feel and think and need, because at the end of the day, I move on and you have to live with the things I create. So if I create a really bad interface, I use colors that are not legible. your sales tank, and I walk away thinking that was my perspective in the world, right? There's a price to pay for being an artist. There's financial uncertainty, there's no guaranteed outcomes, and you often will suffer for your art. In the world, there are many artists, there are very few successful artists, and there's a big difference there.

And so you're seeing art as that— you said the seeing a certain perspective and then basically an invitation to to show other people that same perspective on the world they may not have seen otherwise.

Yeah, it's an invitation for you to look at the world from a different perspective. So when we, when we move away from the realistic, uh, like paintings from Caravaggio and we move into the world of Van Gogh, it is a totally different way of looking at the world, right? And if we take a Van Gogh painting and we turn it into a 3-dimensional experience that you walk through and you can literally walk into a painting That is asking you to look at the world from a different point of view. When we listen to music or we watch a film that transports us to another place and time and person, they're bringing us to look at the world from a different point of view. So my, my goal— and I think about this, and I'm still trying to figure out how to say this part— but I think you have 2 priorities in life. Your first priority is, uh, to be true to yourself. Mm-hmm. And your second priority is to refer to priority number one. And so my whole thing is, if helping you, making you happier, requires me to not be my truest self, then I'm not interested in that at all. And this is a hard thing for, for people to hear because we've been trained to believe the opposite. It's like we, we have to look out for people. You're lacking empathy or sympathy. And I think I serve more people, especially myself, when I am myself. And I have many examples. If any of that becomes interesting to you, we can talk about that and pick that apart, but I'm trying my best to just be my truest self. And so whatever that comes across, some people listen to this and said, this guy's full of himself. He doesn't know what he's talking about. He's too aggressive. He's too direct. Some people say he's really charming, interesting, a breath of fresh air. I don't really care either way. I just need to be me.

Right. I think that— I don't know if this is to the level of like identity or something like that, but what I— when I think about The gift that I want to bring to the world, I think similar to you, I grew up in an environment where money was very scarce and the amount of pain and anxiety and everything else that comes from that is, you know, people say money doesn't buy happiness and I'm like, I don't know, like lack of money definitely causes—

Right.

Some negative side effects. So somewhere in the spectrum, like money can be a positive thing. And I, maybe from an observing the world perspective, like, I look at things from almost like a physics perspective of like, why did this business work? Why does this job get paid more money? Why, like, why do all of these things play out in a certain way? Why do recurring revenue businesses sell to private equity for more than, you know, one-time purchase? Like, any of those things. Yeah, right. And what I've realised, as anyone else who's built a company has as well, is that there's observable concrete things and concrete steps that you can do. And I feel like my mission in this life is to map that out for people so that they don't have to go through the same level of pain and suffering. You look at like one of the single biggest reasons that like relationships fail, it's like conflict over money and all that. And you're like, what if that just didn't have to be a thing? And so when I think about the impact that I wanna have on people and and all of that is I want to make as many of these things known. Like, I want to explain the laws of physics so that you go, oh.

Yep.

I just needed to do that. And now, you know, money doesn't have to be a point of stress for me, you know, and all that. And so that's the thing that I try to do as much as possible when, like, my identity or my brand or all of that is Or my my gift to the world would be how do I make that as clear and as understandable as possible?

Mm-hmm.

And like that's my way of being of service to others.

Mm-hmm. I like that. Well, I I think you provide tools that have served you, but it happens to serve a lot of other people.

Right.

You could have chosen a lot of different things to make in this world, and this is what. I mean, sometimes I think about this. Did you choose your job or did the job choose you? Never sure. And I think a lot of times you thought you made that decision because free will is an exciting idea. But maybe that was your calling. Who knows? But you're still very young. You could kind of restart 2 more times and still be like, oh, this is what I was meant to do. I'll give you the example. So from my 20s on to my 40s, I thought my purpose was to make commercials and music videos and improve the world by making aesthetic things, especially in the motion space, right? And then I found that towards the end of that arc, I didn't get any more joy from doing this. The challenges got bigger, the budgets got bigger, and the consequences of making bad decisions got bigger. But it's like, I don't enjoy this really. And then I realized the whole point was to make money. I just did it to make money. It just— I found a gift that I did. I was able to do this with less effort than most people, so I got to reap the rewards of that gift. But now I'm faced with this idea, like, I don't need to make more money. What do I need to do? And that sent me into kind of an inner journey.

Yeah.

About what is that I want to do with my life. And it was by accident I found content creation as a, as a form. So some, some people's art is expressing through music, through physical things. My art is like words and ideas, and I just want to keep working on that.

Yeah, that makes sense. We've talked a lot about what you stand for, right? And, and both in brands or who you are as a person. Something I've heard you talk about in your content is like what you stand against.

Yes.

And how people are often very afraid. Like, it's safe to say I stand for this. Yes, it is. Like all the things that we've talked about, no one's gonna listen to that and be like, oh, those assholes, you know? Right, right. That sort of thing. But standing against something that like actually, one, it differentiates the brand, but two, like it's risky. Like how do you think about that and how do you encourage brands to think about it? Or individuals more so than brands?

It's less risky than we think.

Okay.

It's something like, and I'm not gonna tell you who the original person said this or the exact quote, I'll just share an idea that's not mine. Which is nothing unites people more than a common cause. So we can hate the same things, it's pretty cool. And we can see this play out in real time in politics right now, that it seems less about what we stand for but, but what we stand against, right? And there's something very unifying about this. Both there are good parts and bad parts to this. Most companies or individuals will say, I stand for freedom, I stand for equality. I'm like, yeah, cool, cool. Or it's

like, I believe in having the values of integrity, honesty, or whatever.

And you're like, Enron?

Okay.

So it winds up being these empty platitudes.

Yeah.

So if you stand for something that no one can disagree with, then do you stand for anything? Probably not. So then we say, like, what's the opposite of that? So if you're trying to make sure people have safe drinking water, cool, we believe in that.

Yeah.

What's the opposite of that? Well, disease. Safety, um, and all kinds of things. Like, when we don't have proper hydration or nutrients in our body, then we're dealing with the first tier, which is health. Mm-hmm. And we want to move people along because I believe if my neighbors, in the broadest sense of that definition, are doing better, the world's a better place. It's safer. It's like when they don't have more want, then my family and the people I care about don't have to worry about people taking things away.

Right.

And it's better this way. Yeah. So I tell people, if you want to develop your personal brand, A, you need to know something— your— what your keyword is, like what you want to be associated with. So when people think of this word, they think of me. This is really important. Okay. So think of this and they think of me. And then on the opposite side of that is who is your nemesis? What are you trying to rid the world of? It's like when you go to sleep at night, what is the thing that bothers you about the way things work? And it doesn't have to be a person. It probably shouldn't be a person, an idea, a process, a system, something like that. And you need to be able to articulate that. And they have to work against what you want to be known for. These are really important components. And somebody had recently debated with me, well, I don't like this idea. It seems so American or antagonistic, or it seems so aggressive to have an enemy. I wanna do this without it. You can. This is not what I teach, and this is not what I've been able to observe.

So it won't resonate to the same extent.

I think so. And I think of the strongest brands in the world, they have a pretty clearly defined mission that they're on. They're trying to achieve this result while getting, or getting rid of something else. So if there's a program to feed children, what are they trying to end? Probably poverty.

Yep.

Right? That seems to make a lot of sense. And as a comic book nerd myself, I've observed this, and you might have a different perspective on this, is who are the most enduring popular superheroes? You can probably name a few. Who are they?

Batman.

Batman. Spider-Man. Spider-Man. There's a lot of man in here, but yes.

Exactly.

Yeah. And, and, and maybe even Superman. Yep. Okay. So from the DC Universe, this is kind of wild. They have some of the most iconic characters. They're just designed really well. And it seems like more of the world knows about the DC characters-ish. And then Marvel is like more successful, doesn't have the same iconic characters. It's really weird. Okay, here's my observation. The reason why heroes are the heroes that break through the threshold or into like our consciousness is they have great enemies. So who's Batman's enemy?

The Joker.

The Joker. Yeah, probably his primary. He has a lot. He has a rogues gallery. And, and in fact, when you think about it, when the creators of these characters build their world, the better the enemies, the better the hero, cuz the hero needs to fight for something.

And it's even bigger than the individual enemy. It's, it's the, you know, what Gotham has become like the, the crime, the—

Yeah.

Like

the city is a character in, in this whole thing. And that is also part of the personal brand. So when we, when we look at Batman and we look at the design of the Joker, There's something interesting about this. Batman's a billionaire. He had a tragic beginning. Uh, he's, uh, kind of a physical specimen. He's the world's greatest detective. So he's not only smart, he's strong and rich. Uh, you know, like the joke in the movie was like, yeah, billionaire philanthropist, what's your problem? Billionaire playboy philanthropist, what's your problem? Right? Who's the Joker? The Joker has a mysterious origin. He's a criminal. He's chaotic. And he's intellectually superior to Batman, but physically inferior. So these heroes and these villains tend to be the equal and the opposite of each other. It's like, I'm a big fan of the yin-yang symbol, equal and opposite, they're balanced. So if you look at Superman, his biggest enemy is Lex Luthor. He's an alien, he's human. He's strong, he's dumb as a brick. Lex is a genius.

Right.

And rich.

Yeah.

And he's physically very weak. So this is kind of, kind of interesting. So when we look at world building, we look at the 2 characters. They're not separate, they're part of the world. So when we look at the world of you, your brand, you have what you perceive as your strengths, but you also have the shadow side, which is the part that we hide. And so if I were to tell you the Blue Beetle— can you name the Blue Beetle's enemy?

No.

I couldn't either. Because I don't know. That's the problem.

Right.

So sometimes they overpower someone, and then they don't give them a strong counterpart. They're constantly foils to each other. So in the world of fiction, these 2 components build that world. You take away one, it becomes much weaker. So what I try to help people do is look into your shadow self, the things that you feel great shame or guilt or anxiety around. and you've been hiding for a really long time because you feel the world will not accept you. Once you accept that, the world will love you. And it's hard, deep work here. Mm-hmm.

Okay. So if we bring this into a personal brand, like, and talking about what you stand for. Yeah. Is there an example that comes to mind or an individual who's done this well where they say, this is what I stand for and this is what I stand against?

Yes, yes, yes. And it's not like— and people are like, do they have a team? Right? I'm like, no. They exist and their belief systems drive their words and their actions. And we start to see it. And the people who are very consistent at doing this, and they're not trying to do 1,000 different things, it becomes very easy for us to see. My favorite example is Bryan Johnson. He's the most measured man, right?

Right.

He's a pretty radical millionaire, billionaire. I don't know how much. He's got a lot of money. He is trying to live longer, but not just live longer. So we can say like, What is the keyword he wants to be associated with? What would you say?

Longevity.

Longevity.

Yeah.

Or aging reversal.

Yeah.

Something like that. So naturally, what is the enemy?

Time.

Time. Or you might say death.

Right.

Keep it real simple.

Yeah.

He's not fighting time. He's just trying to cheat death.

Yeah. I mean, his— right. If you had a bumper sticker. Yeah. It's like, don't die.

Don't die. Well, that's the third component to this 3-part, which is you have what you stand for, you have what you stand against, And you have a line, a rallying cry, a tagline, something that unites these 2 things. Right. So don't die tells you the enemy and what he stands for. We can infer all the meaning from that. So when we— I was asked this recently on a podcast, I stumbled through it. I'm like, let me make up for that right now. They're like, well, Chris, what's your triangle? What are your 3 components? What are you standing for? Well, I don't know a better word. I hate this word, but I'm going to say it. Like truly authentic, a personal brand. That's what I want to be known for. And the opposite of that is some form of masking. So then my tagline is Unblend Yourself, and that should explain those 2 concepts. The cool thing is the only part that people see is the bumper sticker part, but we can infer the meaning from that.

Right.

And so these 3 things have to work in concert in my mind. Otherwise it's a 2-legged table.

Okay, so if we workshop this, going back to my brand—

Oh, it's all about you.

It's all about me. It's called The Nathan Barry Show.

My God, the ego on this guy.

Yes, it's incredible.

Chelsea, I don't know how you deal with this.

Yeah. What I've said is the mission for the company, and this is my individual mission as well, like, we exist to help creators earn a living. And so it's very— it's like, we want clean water. Like, of course, like, great. There's everything is positive about that, but there's nothing in there that stands against. And so I'm trying to think of where, where you would get to. I guess you'd, you know, you'd be against poverty, you'd be against like ignorance, right? Because a lot of the way that I believe you achieve this is not working harder. It's understanding the physics of—

Your enemy could be burnout.

Yeah, it could be burnout. All of those things. But how else would you, would you think about that? Or like, what questions would you ask the driver?

This is excellent. Okay. What you do as a company is different than who you are.

Okay.

So we have to do like a little palate cleanser and just forget that the company exists, because over time you might be selling and buying companies and you're not going to change who you are in that process. We have to figure out who you are and what you stand for. And the company is a mirror to this. But it's not the driver of this. Okay, so my company is called The Futur. I'm not talking about past, present, or future. I'm not— I am just me. The company collects the residuals of me being me. And it's a very different way of running a company or building a brand because it's very founder-focused. Because people are like, how do you differentiate between what The Futur makes, posts, and what Chris Do posts? I'm like, well, I write whatever I want to write, I say whatever I want to say, and some team collects those parts. repackages it and calls it the future. It's not the other way around. So I can't— I have to emphasize this a little bit because people who are in real estate, people who are into, uh, investment, uh, or what is it called, venture capital, their whole identity is around moving money. It's like, no, it's not. There's something bigger that you believe in, and there's a story there that is connected to your origin that if you're able to tell, then all the parts will make sense. Why is it important for me to end this masking thing? Okay, because first of all, I see a lot of suffering in the world, and suffering is like probably lowercase s here. There's this internal struggle in all of us that is fighting for control of who gets to live this life, the real you or the persona you've adopted. And it's really hard to know which is which, especially if you've been living in the persona for a really long time. Why this matters to me is because I'm a refugee to America from Vietnam, and I grow up English is my second language. I don't understand the culture and the customs, and I'm in fights. I'm picked on, and so I retreat inward because I'm also an introvert. And for a long time, I don't have a voice. I don't have an identity. I'm trying to disappear. And so there's a lot of healing that had to go through. I had to go through to figure out who I'm supposed to be in this life. Some sadness, some depression. And once I worked my way out, it's like, I don't want anyone else to go through that. That's important to me. So over the course of however long I live, I might build different companies, different products, but they're all gonna be a reflection of this philosophy. I'm just trying to help people self-actualize.

Yeah. I mean, and that's how I feel as well. Like the company mission and everything else, is just an expression of, like, an outward expression of the things that I believe in, the impact that I want to have on the world.

Yeah.

And that's where I feel like I don't resonate with so many entrepreneurs because they're like, oh, I built this company and I exited that and I'm doing these other things and I run all of these things. And I'm like, no, this company is like how I plan to impact the world. And that's why I'm 13 years into one company. And in 10 years, I fully expect that I will be doing, you know, it might have a slightly different shape.

Yeah.

But I will be doing basically the same thing.

Yeah.

Of helping people, um, yeah, reach that, reach their full potential and get to this point where they not only are having that financial impact for themselves and their family, but then it's turning into something for many more people.

Do you, would you consider yourself as having some degree of self-awareness?

I think so.

Okay. So if I spent a couple hours with you and asked you a couple of questions and we weren't being taped and all that stuff, I could probably help you surface this pretty quickly. And, and as long as you're willing to tell truth and understand a little bit about who you are, we can figure it out. It's like, oh, it's a lot of these things. And eventually find it and you're like, wow, I didn't know that was there. And so oftentimes we can see other people's problems really clearly. We can't see our own thing. It's very difficult. Anybody's ever built their identity or messaging for their company, it's the longest, hardest thing and it usually sucks, right? Because we're changing our mind all the time. So one clue on this is a friend of mine, Blair Enns, said something to this effect. He says, all strategy is autobiographical. We dispense advice and strategies based on what's worked for us. Okay? You created something because you had a problem and you dealt with it.

Right.

Sometimes the problem is the problem, and sometimes there's 2 layers deeper than that that's the real problem. So through some excavation, through some listening, through some empathy, we can find that problem pretty quickly. We can start to understand what motivates you, what drives you, and why you're trying to correct for something that's happened to you, some wrong that you've perceived in the world, either done to you or that you experienced that you're trying to make right. As I say that, I can see your eyes looking somewhere, searching your memory banks, possibly.

Yeah, I'm just thinking through, yeah, it's basically, my biggest thing that I realized is how much I spent my childhood feeling like I was a burden on other people. And so going through this arc of first, you know, hitting that feeling and not knowing what to do about it at all, right? And then becoming acutely aware of money and, you know, everything that came from that, how to like become self-sufficient, right? And so hearing Jason Fried from Basecamp say, making money is a skill that you can get better at with deliberate practice. I heard that and like, I was like— Wait, seriously? Right? And so then it was like, everything is within my power. And then spending really a lot of time in the, okay, my identity and my value and all of that is based on the money that I make, the impact that I have on other people. And the hard thing about that, there's a lot of hard things, but one of them is that then I found that I would do the inverse.

Can I borrow your paper? You mind if I, I know this is really weird. No, I wanna write in your notebook. I wanna map some of this in case something comes out. All right. Is that okay?

Yeah, go for it.

I know it's weird. Never touched my notebook or my pen, but here we go. Okay, keep talking. Don't ignore everything I may or may not be writing down.

And so what I ended up doing is I found that there were 2 people in my life that I deeply resented. And that was my stepdad and my younger brother. And the reason is that I perceived them both as being burdens on my mom. And so like, I watched my mom struggle with finances, all of this, take care of all of us kids, you know, everything. And then like finally achieve her own, after my parents got divorced, like finally achieve her own independence. And she became a nurse, got her master's in nursing, like got to the point where she was making a really meaningful amount of money and all this. And like doing this into her like late 50s and 60s and starting a new career and doing all of this. And then marrying someone who was a paraplegic. My brother was still living with her, you know, like not getting a driver's license. Like, it was just a bunch of these things. And I'm like, you know, so, so frustrated at both of them that like they took all of her time and attention. And because I like, I based so much value around like what you create, the independence that you have, not being a burden. There was something like, I don't know, it's probably 4 years ago, 5 years ago or something. I realized that like, Like, my mom's gift to the world is to serve and to take care of people. And so I was like, as I deeply resented the people that she was like doing her greatest expression of love to take care of, probably the hardest thing for me is to then allow myself to be taken care of or to be a burden on someone else. And so like, it's like full circle of where it's like, yeah, I can achieve this level of independence. But then to get to the point where it's like, oh, I have value outside of what I accomplish. I can allow myself to be taken care of by other people. I can fully exist and I can fully accept people who, you know, like my stepdad, who like, he needs someone to care for him, right? He's confined to a wheelchair, right? All of those things. It's a long answer too, and a bit of a ramble, but that's some of the arc that I went on.

It's fascinating. Have you shared this before?

A little bit. Not, not in detail.

Is your stepdad still alive?

No, he passed away 4 years ago. Oh,

okay. The paraplegic?

Uh-huh.

Have you said this prior to him passing away?

Yeah, I was able to tell him.

You told him?

Yep. And at his hospital bed.

What compelled you to tell your stepfather on his deathbed, quite literally, That you resented him for being a burden to your mom.

I think there's things that you don't want to tell someone because of the impact or the burden that it would place on them or how it'd make them feel. And the thing that I realized is most things, if you've been around someone for a long time, most things that you're like, I probably wanted to— I shouldn't tell them this or that sort of thing, they already know. You told them, like, 500 tiny little ways over time in how you acted, how, like, the little things, right? And so what I realized is I think that I, I think I told him in 500 little ways and he felt that. And so I told him the opposite. I told him that I was so grateful that he was in my life and my mom's life because I was able to see my mom through him express like the truest nature of who she is.

Mm-hmm.

And he brought that out of her. And so it was this really special moment to be able to invert that and to basically say, not to place a burden on him, but to relieve him of that. Because this is the thing that I had told him 1,000 times in subtle ways, but to say, no, actually, I see it the complete opposite

now. Thanks for sharing that story and for being real with me.

Yeah. Thanks for drawing it out.

Oh, we're not done with the drawing yet. Okay, I think in that moment, I'm going to make a lot of assumptions because I don't know you well at all. So you can say, you jackass, you don't know anything about nothing. But

just throw my water.

Yeah, this is not the podcast I signed up for. I think in that moment, you've ascended because you kind of let something that's been eating you up instead of just releasing on him. You kind of released him of this thing. And I think You did it for him. You did it for you, and maybe you did it for your mom. I don't know. Yeah, but we were talking about enemies and what you what you stand for. My my therapist had asked me this many years ago. He goes, "I'm curious about your wife. Is she anything like you?" I'm like, "We're the exact opposite. We're the exact opposite in every single way I can imagine." But we work. So she's like, "I have this weird theory about people. It's like they're brought into our lives to teach us something." And, and that sounds, depending on how you interpret that, it could be a negative. It doesn't sound like a positive to me. But if you think of your mom's greatest gift is the— her expression of love is to take care of people. I think your stepfather came into her life so she can express her gift. Like Superman is Superman because of Lex. And so we, we just see it. And I, I think maybe, who knows, this will probably be another session. But there was a child inside of you who's like, Mom, what about us? Or like, I, I will work to support you, but then now you're supporting this other random dude. You know, what up, what up with that? But you have to believe somewhere that your mom found somebody who completed her in a way that you could not understand because you don't have the same lens into the world.

Right.

And perhaps your mom doesn't shine as bright without him. Who knows? But in that moment that you're able to flip, this is the thing I try and help people with. But not from an external point, from an internal point. Now imagine this entire conversation happening inside your heart and your brain, where you feel like, I'm a caretaker, and there's this other side where it's like, I need to be taken care of, and they're in conflict with each other. And the resolution that you found was that they're not in conflict, they're complementary to one another. I don't know.

Oh yeah, no, it's absolutely like the— my, uh, biggest expression, like my favorite thing to do is take care of people and serve them and all of that. And then— Oh,

this is fascinating.

My other favorite thing is to be taken care of.

Okay, this is wonderful. Look at this, look at this. I mean, I don't know what happened. Forget about, uh, entrepreneurship here. Your whole company and your whole ethos is to take care of other people and help them in their business. So what if the world had no problems to take care of? You'd be out of purpose.

Yeah.

So in the thing that you saw in your stepfather, it's like you need that to exist. And in your own way, in a very different way, you're helping a lot of other people. And the greater their problem, the greater of service you can become. So I wrote down a couple of words here. You've mentioned the word burden like many, many times. I wasn't counting, but like 8 or 9 times. So that word has to be somewhere in this world of yours. You mentioned the word impact slightly. And then I started to to pull other words out of this, like contribution, carry your weight, dead weight, this feeling of resentment, and this idea of the greatest expression of love is blank blank blank. We don't know. Okay. So I wonder if something it's like the line is something. This is horrible. We're just kind of workshopping it, but maybe something about never be a burden, never feel like a burden. Maybe the feeling is more important.

Never feel like a burden.

Yeah, that could be the— there's maybe something in there because I think the word burden or unburdened or something like that. Like, as a man, I would feel horrible if everyone had to take care of me because I was not competent, unable to, you know? And clearly the paraplegic guy, he had his own battles to deal with. It's not like he chose to just loaf around and eat potato chips, you know? It was life dealt him a set of cards. And he played the cards as best as he could. But I, I do have similar reactions to you when I see people and like, you're not holding up your end of the bargain. And maybe that's also something else. We have strong conviction about how we're supposed to contribute, that we should give more than we take. And in this perspective, somebody was taking more than they were able to give in the way that we can see on the dimension that we're looking at.

Yeah. And I think that the thing about the burden is that it's It's a full circle thing. Because if I want to help people go on the same journey that I did, or that I'm going on, it's to have all of the tools and the mindset and everything else so they don't have to be a burden on other people. And so they can fully take care of themselves and them around them and all of that. And then to also be able to set that aside and be willing to be a burden on someone. and be willing to accept that help, right? 'Cause that's the hardest thing. I thought, if you would've asked me, I don't know, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, somewhere in there, I would've thought like, okay, get me all the tools, all of that. I will get to this point. I'm now, you know, fully of service to others. I would actually keep a little bit of a scorecard. Like, if I, the more generous I am, Mm-hmm. the more I know that I have served you more than you've served me. And I can know that, I'm not a burden. And so I would've thought like, okay, that is some self-actualization moment. And then the arc in this is like, oh, to come all the way back to a point where it's like, oh, I have value as an individual, even if I can't, even if I am a burden on people, and to be willing to accept that help and everything from that.

I'm gonna return your notebook to you. You can have my notebook back. But I was sitting there thinking, The word burden is a judging word. It's a very violent word.

It is, yeah.

Right? Because I wonder if when we see ourselves being a burden to someone else, because of your feelings towards people in your life, like your stepfather, who was a burden to your mom, drained her resources and her energy and her love and everything that she could give. Well, we're gonna have a pretty negative feeling about that word.

Right.

So when someone wants to help you, they want to serve you, but you won't let them because you see yourself as a burden. And so the last thing you want to do is to become the person you had a lot of resentment towards,

right?

So I think what we want to do is find some neutral word to describe what this is, and then, then you could be liberated from this idea, right? And I struggle with this too because I, I think I need to take care of people. And when somebody's like, can I help you do this? In my mind I'm like, please. But I'm like, no, I got this. You know, it's not, it's not out of pride, it's just It's just we're afraid of receiving help for whatever reasons, because there's an emotional charge against receiving help. So the people who I consider some of my closest friends are the ones who push past my resistance, and they're like, well, I'm doing it anyways,

right?

I'm picking you up tomorrow at 4 AM, and I will take you to the airport. I'll make sure you get on this plane or train. I'm like, you, you care about me? Oh my God, you know? And they can just push past that. And I think, um, I know this conversation spiraled into 1,000 different directions there. I think there's like toxic masculinity, and I don't know what the opposite version of that is, but I think men need to be able to understand with each other. We're often hard— it's— we find it difficult to ask for help and to receive help, but to understand like, I'm giving you help regardless, just knowing that underneath that you really do want help,

right?

And not to be a jerk about it. So there's something there.

Well, I think that the thing that I wanna end on is you have this idea that you talked about of how the more perfect someone looks online, the less we trust

them.

And that's part of why I'm so excited to take this conversation the place that we did, right? Because it's just like, you talk about being authentic. I'm pretty sure this is an un-bland conversation. It is. But how do you bring, this level of vulnerability and like authenticness and the imperfections through into the brand or the content that you let people see?

Okay. I kind of look at it like this. There was an article written in Harvard Business Review. I'm fading the 2 women's names, but they call something like the trust triangle, like why we trust some people more than other people. And what we're really trading on is trust. Everywhere we go, you buy a car or or a jacket because you trust that person or that brand. This is how we we do things. We trust this food is going to be okay. It's not going to kill us, right? The trust triangle starts with the top part, which is authenticity, and it's a very broad generic word that's being overused and misused a lot. But it's really are you who you say you are? That's it. And a lot of us are not. That's my mission is to close that gap between this inauthentic self and the real you. And if we can do that, we're starting off really great. Second part to the trust triangle is this word— they use empathy, but they don't use it the way that we use it. The word empathy to them is, are you looking out for me? Do I feel like Nathan's looking out for me? Do I feel like Chris has got my best intentions in his heart? And the last one is— and it's a weird one because it's like, what? It's logic. Do you talk about things in a way that I can follow? So if we look at someone who's on stage and we feel like they're being performative and they're presenting themselves to be more perfect— perfect life, perfect wife, perfect everything, everything is perfect— something about us feels— we're like, it's off, it's off. All their stories are too manufactured, too polished, and it gives us the ick feel. So already we're losing trust. And then they're talking about something, we can feel like, oh, you're gonna bring and rope me into a book Or a course or a masterclass or a cohort. I already can feel it. We're not— yeah, we can feel the pitch a mile away. It's like they think we can't see the train, but we can. It's like a flat line. I can see it coming. It's coming. I already know. So we lost trust on 2 things. And then they're like able to logically tell us, well, I'll agitate the pain and the results are great. We see that you need all 3 components to come together in harmony for you to have trust. So when we're being overly polished, it first of all requires a lot of mental and spiritual energy to hold something up, right? It's like we had to clean the house before everybody gets there. We got to make sure the lens and the makeup and the beauty filters and all that kind of stuff is perfect. It requires too much energy. And I, I don't know about you, I have finite energy, and I want to spend all of my energy being my truest self. So if I divert that energy away Then what happens to me being in this moment connecting or listening to you? It's diminished, and I don't want to do that. And it requires some level of bravery to, to speak truth, to be able to say what's on your mind in a way that's not violent to other people. It's a skill, just like how Jason Fried was talking about making money is a skill, right? I think learning how to use your authentic, true voice is a skill.

Yeah.

Requires practice.

If you were to give people maybe one question to sit with or a place to start, if they're going to sit down with their journal, anything come to mind?

Wow. I have talked a lot about shadow self and doing this, and I realize how hard this is. So I don't want to send people down that path because they'll try and like, this is too weird. It's too hard. I need my therapist next to me. I need, I need some support. So I'll do it differently. I want to give them a quick win. So the first thing I can do is to have people figure out their voice phrase.

Yeah.

So it turns out like it's a pretty good compass as to who you are. It's your North Star. So we— the exercise is write down how you sound to the world, as many different words as you can write, and just write without editing, without thinking, without curating. And if you get stuck, say, well, how would my friend describe me? As my voice? How would my employee or my boss or my partner, my parent, my sibling describe my voice? And sometimes it's really weird, we don't think we have the answers, but as soon as I change the phrase or the prompt, they can start to write. Look at the collection of words and select the 3 that ring true, that build on each other versus that are redundant. So bold, brave— don't use those 2 words. You get to use one of them and find your 3 words. Okay, now you'll find your 3 words, and then sit down and try to think, what is a short 2 to 5 word phrase that sums up these disparate characteristics about me? The example is this. A buddy of mine, he's a photographer. He teaches embodiment through posing. He's, he's a real interesting person because the photo is just, um, an artifact of how the person feels,

right?

It's pretty powerful stuff that he does. So when he came up with his 3 words, he said, I'm flamboyant. You definitely are. I'm very playful. You most certainly are. And he's, I'm vulnerable. So I sat with those 3 words and I was just writing, thinking, okay, so your voice phrase is big energy, open heart. And I said that to him. He goes, my God, that is everything I've ever done. I'm like, I know.

Yeah.

But we don't put words to it. So we, we don't know. It's very abstract. It's like a fog. And all of a sudden this makes it really concrete. For me, just as one more example, I am critical. I'm direct, but I'm caring. And those are important words.

Critical and caring have that. Yeah.

Yeah. There's like that kind of polar dichotomy kind of thing. So my voice phrase would be hard truths gently told. And I find like, how do we use this right? Hard truth. So if I write something, if I'm on a podcast with you and people walk away, this is just a lot of generic nonsense or. or it's just he's playing it too safe, then I failed my own identity. So I need to say what I feel in my heart. And almost always it is contrarian, it challenges the norm, and it sometimes is triggering. I'm not doing that on purpose, it's just who I am. But if I do it in a way that you walk away feeling like, what an a-hole, then I've not done the gently told part.

Right.

So I have to use nonviolent language. Emote through the tonality of my voice that people feel like, yeah, that bastard does care.

Hard truths gently told.

Hard truths gently told. They don't always have to be opposing,

right?

Right. Because other people have different phrases and I'm like, that's great. That sounds just like you as far as I can tell.

I love that.

So do that. See what happens.

Chris, thank you so much for coming on. If people want to follow more of your content, where's the best place to go?

You can find me on all social channels. I'm @thechrissdoe and that's spelled D-O.

Sounds good. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me, man. Thanks for crying.

Anytime.

Thanks for being real. I like it.

If you enjoyed this episode, go to YouTube and search The Nathan Barry Show, then hit subscribe and make sure to like the video and drop a comment. I'd love to hear what some of your favorite parts of the video were and also just who else you think we should have on the show. Thank you so much for listening.