Genius Content Advice with $80M Creator Chris Do | Ep 19

So there are people who are really good at business, but they're not creative. And then there's also people who are creatives, but they're terrible at business. The best is when you can do both. Not only is this possible, there's actually a blueprint for this.

The thing I hear so much from all of you is, but I'm not creative. I'm not creative. We don't grow into creativity. We grow out of creativity. So you don't need to learn to be creative. You just need to remember your creative soul and you need to let that part shine.

That's the part I think people are worried about, is like, hey, I want to create more. Okay. I feel like my ideas aren't good.

Seek progress over perfection. Like in many things in your life, you get better at what you repeatedly do. The goal of what we do isn't perfection.

What's the strategy to get better? That is, it simply reps. How do they get better? To be more consistent. Because everyone is asking, how can I be consistent on social media?

If you start.

So for today's guest on the podcast, I wanted to bring on my friend Chris Do. Chris is an Emmy Award winning designer. He's built up millions of followers across social media platforms. He's helped me and our group do so many cool, creative things, which has led to insane business success. But in addition to the creativity part, Chris is also a Jedi businessman. He's made millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars. I don't even know what his net worth is. I'll maybe I'll ask him on the episode. He's never been asked that, but he's done both. And then what I admire most about Chris is now in the. Maybe this is the second version of his career, you know, or the second episode of, like his business journey. He gets to live his life doing the things he loves to do the most. And I admire that. You know, it's like, yeah, I want to make a lot of money, I want to have influence. But Chris gets to do what he wants on a daily basis and make a big impact doing it. So thank you so much for being here, Chris.

Thanks, Neil. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's awesome to get to do this with you. I know I was a guest on your show and you've been on our events and all these things, and everybody wants to learn more when you're done. So what I've done today is I've taken questions and I've taken all the things that people really want to learn about building Your personal brand and marrying these two things, being good at business, but then also being creative. And so first, before we get started, are people just born creative? Or like, if you're not, are you screwed? Like, how do you. How do you get there?

Okay, before I answer that question, I want to speak to this thing about this duality that we have and where you're part business or maybe part creative, but you're not, like, all cohesive. The most successful comic book artist is a guy by the name of Todd McFarlane. Some of you might know who he is. I watched this interview with him from Complex magazine, and they asked him, why are you so successful, Todd? He goes, you know what, here's the thing. Artists are really good at speaking the language of art. I'm bilingual, I speak the language of art, and I speak the language of business. And when you look at the empire he's been able to build, it's because he's able to bring those two together. Now, typically, the crowd that I talk to are super creative and terrible at business. They have low self worth, they have negative self talk. They negotiate before they even talk to the other person. And that's what they suffer with. But what's interesting about this group is you guys are battling on the opposite side, which is, I think we're really good at business. I'm pretty sure most of you have way more money than me and you're struggling with. Is there a creative person inside of me? And the thing I hear so much from all of you is saying things like, I'm not creative, Chris, but I'm not creative. I'm not creative. Sir Ken Robinson, probably one of the top 10 Ted talks before he passed away, he gave this talk. He says, we're not. We don't grow into creativity. We grow out of creativity. That the system, how we're socialized, the school system especially. He's got a bone to pick with education. I do, too. It strips us of our individuality. We wear uniforms. We raise our hand before we can talk. And if you act out too much, then you're the problem, kid. I have a hard problem with this because I just look at the children of the world, and maybe we're all just one large global family. And. And this is what's being destroyed and taken out from us. And it hurts me. And this is something I want to try to counteract. So you don't need to learn to be creative. You just need to remember your creative soul, and you need to let that part shine.

Yeah, I love that because in the beginning, we've made this analogy, Chris and I, when we first collaborated on an event. I brought Chris out to the Ford Mastermind a couple of years ago, and he was shocked at how almost childlike and giddy my members got. And many of you were there, some of you in this room were there at that time about how excited we got when we got to do creative things. And it's almost like their eyes lit up and they got this new energy, and then that got you more passionate about your business. And then, incidentally, you make more money, too. But what's cool about that is the analogy we used at the time was we all had crayons, and then somebody took away our crayons. And then Chris has given us back all these colors. He's given us back not the small kit, which is like, what, 48, 16. He gave me that big ass one, you know, the 250 with all the big. You know, you can picture this in your mind. And he gave me that one back. And he gave it to us back at that event. And I feel like people just started to go crazy. And maybe some of the stuff that you do in the beginning as you're redoing this is cringe. But, like, so that's the part I think people are worried about, is like, hey, I want to create more. Okay. We're going through this process of getting our markers back, but I feel like my ideas aren't good. I feel like I'm just. I'm stuck. Like, when I. We give a creative exercise, a lot of the ideas we get are just bland. They're just boring. Like, how do you counteract that?

Well, I don't know if we should measure our ideas versus some abstract level of perfection. I think some of the most creative people, the artists in the world, you talk to them, they. They think they make crap. So if that's what they're feeling, I can only imagine what you guys are feeling. But I do know something is, like, in many things in your life, you get better at what you repeatedly do. So the more you do it, you'll make a little tweak. And it's something that my business coach used to say to me all the time. Seek progress over perfection. The goal of what we do isn't perfection. And I know it's plaguing a lot of you because it hurts my community, too, which is Chris. I need to know every step. Like, what happens after that and after that, and after that. And after a while, I learned that it's really not them asking what the next step is. It's just a stalling tactic. It's the way to procrastinate or to avoid what I think is the inevitable. So the most beautiful thing that you can do is, like, who cares what the next step is? Just do the first step. See how it feels. If it feels good, do the next step.

And so if someone wants to be creative, what is that first step?

Okay, I think maybe we zoom out and we talk about what is creativity. And I think sometimes in our mind, we're having these discussions at table. So I'm sorry if I repeat myself. I think people think of creativity as, like, you get on stage and you wear a clown nose and you wear bozo shoes and you have green hair. And they think that's what creativity looks like. And it kind of feels like that sometimes. But creativity is just taking what we know and making one small tweak to it. There's a guy, his name is Kirby Ferguson. If you look this up, everything is remixed. He explains creativity really beautifully, and he looks at pop culture to help us understand something, right? What we do is we love things and we love more of what we love. So what we do is we remix things. Like, if you think of the Road Warrior, which is a beautiful film. George Miller, incredible director, visionary. He's the same guy who directed Happy Feet, by the way, which blows my mind. And then when they went to pitch this movie about with Kevin Costner on the Waters, they say it's like Road Warrior but on the water and greenlit one of the biggest Hollywood flops. And it's just like, you just remix things. There's a guy, his name is Danger Mouse. Does anybody here know who Danger Mouse is? Some of you do. It's kind of upscale for some of you. Danger Mouse took the Beatles White Album and Jay Z's Black Album and created the Gray Album. And the Internet went crazy for him. So it's just taking an idea and tweaking a little bit, taking a phrase that, you know, we mentioned something. If you want a masterclass on how to write really good copy that doesn't feel tricky and overworked, just go to Apple's website. For sure, I'm an Apple fanboy, but just look at how they talk. Look at anything. They launch their iPad, their watch, and read the copy. They have the world's best advertising agency. And of those people, they have the best art directors and copywriters working on one of the most valuable companies in the world. For sure, the bar is going to be really high, and you're going to be shocked. It's not the clown with the shoes and the hair and the nose. It's just taking a very familiar phrase that you've heard and changing it ever so slightly. So when they talk about the processing power of a computer, they don't talk about how many megahertz it has or how many operations you can do. They just say something like, no pain, all gain. Because you've heard of no pain, no gain. They just took one word, they just replaced it. If you just go through the entire site, it's them doing hits after hits after hits. And this is what they do to enroll you into their program, their way of thinking, their ethos. And that's what creativity is. Take one little thing and tweak it. Mr. JohnnyCupcakes. Johnny Earl. I love his logo. I wish in my life I could design a logo this iconic. That logo is so effective that if it's the size of your thumbnail, you can still recognize it. The size of pinhead, you can still recognize it. And you blow it up bigger than the Empire State Building. It's still cool. It's not this act of genius, because if you understand his story and what he does, I'll break it down for you. He. He's. He's like 17, 18. He drops out of college. I think he attended one semester. He's in. In a band, like a rock band. And if you know Johnny, he's got a really big heart. He's talking about the human experience. And he sees all these hard rock fans with skulls and chains and doing all this kind of stuff. He's like, that's not the vibe. So he makes fun of them. He takes the skull and bones crossbones, and he takes the skull away because that's kind of scary. And he replaces it with a cupcake. If you understand that, that's kind of genius. And if I can, I'll reverse engineer something for you so you can see how it's done. When you see the formula, when someone shows you the magic trick, it's not so magical anymore.

Hey, quick question for you. How much have you been loving these podcast episodes? I've been getting so much great feedback from you guys. And right here is where I would typically put in an ad read for these episodes. But you know what? I was thinking about it. The only thing I really want to promote right now, the only thing I want you to do is just hit that subscribe button. I'm trying to grow this thing out, and so many of you are watching and listening and sharing, but you're not subscribed to the channel. So whether you're watching, listening, hit the follow button, hit subscribe. And that's going to allow me to grow this thing. Let's get back to the episode.

Take something really familiar. Remove, edit or change. One thing, I think it was with Nathan. I was talking to him, talking about like Burger King and vegans being upset that we're, we're eating animals. So they just took Burger King's logo, the two patty, the bun on the top and the bottom, and use the same typeface. And they wrote in the meat is murder. See, they just take something that you're familiar with and they just tweak it a little bit. If you can do that, you're a creative person.

That's huge because it takes away this weight and this overwhelmed, like, man, what am I going to do to come up with ideas? The ideas are everywhere. You just need to tweak them. So I love that. That's awesome because I think it's going to help so many people. The other thing that I realized, as you said this, is that's exactly how I became creative. So, like, I would look at other people. So for example, I would look at your content and how you were presenting things on Instagram. I would look at a presentation you made and then I was like, how could I make my version of this? You know, like, even if it was small tweaks of like, here's how you make your slides, here's how you present things, here's how you teach on Instagram, here's the videos that you're making, and then just put your own spin on it. I feel like what people do most of the time though, Chris, where this goes wrong is it just make the exact replica of what you're doing without understanding the magic trick that you just talked about.

Right. I wouldn't mind if they made the exact replica. What they do is they make a worse copy. That's insulting to me. So Austin Klein writes about this in his book Steal like an Artist. He says, there's a good copy and there's a bad copy. It's why Picasso is famous for saying good artists borrow and great artists steal. It's actually very hard to do something exactly like somebody else. First of all, you don't have the same talent, experience or the resources. So what you do is some ugly ass version of it. And then you put that out there and people are like, cringe, like, no, you just. That was a really bad copy. We know this because some manufacturers copy or heavily inspired by other famous brands. And if you wind up buying that, people clown on you for that. Like, what are you doing, bro? Why would you wear that? Why? Why'd you buy that? That's a knockoff. What you don't want to do is a knockoff, right? Nobody wants to be a poor imitation than something that was great. But what we're talking about here is a remix. And the remix doesn't even have to be that profound. Like, I see Johnny's cupcakes logo over there. You guys see that right there? You see why that logo works and why, if you were to do it, it might not work. And I'm going to explain a couple of things. A skull is big on the top, and then there's the jaw part, right? So it has to be big at the top and skinnier at the bottom so that when you look at it, your first, what they like, say, the primary read is it looks like a skull and crossbone that you've seen a thousand times. On your second look, your secondary read, it's like, wait, is that a cupcake? And that's the magic part of it. It's what magicians do. It's all sleight of hand. It's misdirection. So we think it's this, and then they change into that. Now here's what you can do. And people do this all the time. Or actually an example of this. There is something called generative AI, right? And it looks at an image and it understands what it is, and it will generate the missing parts. So you can take CD album art and you zoom out like Nirvana's Teen Smells, like Teen Spirit, and it shows you what the rest of the pool looks like. That is the amount of creativity we're talking about. And the Internet's like, oh, my God, there's somebody else. He's a. I shouldn't say he. I don't know. An artist took like a classic pointillist painting, like an impressionistic painting, and made it like 3D. You can experience it. You could walk through a painting. So they didn't even change it, except for to make it dimensional. So you can take words and you can add music to it and that elevates it. And we've seen this a lot with Internet sharing culture, like remixing. They take something that wasn't that great and they added some new thing to it which made it great. I think there's a guy, I don't know what his name is. His name, like Dog face.

Yeah.

He was holding an ocean spray bottle, and he was on a longboard, and Fleetwood Mac song in the back that people hadn't listened to in a really long time was such a beautiful song. I don't know why that's cool, but a hundred gazillion people looked at that thing.

Yeah. So many interesting instances where I've created a piece of content where I said something, or maybe it's a clip of you saying something, Chris. And we add this audio behind it, and it gives it new meaning. It gives. It hits the right way. And so that's cool. Like, simply adding music to things simply, you know, changing up the look and feel of. Of the piece of content would be huge. I think about this all the time, Chris. Like, as I've been building my personal brand, and everybody who's watching listening in this room, they all want to build a powerful personal brand and have a better life and, you know, create and generate business and get all the benefits of this. Do you need to be super creative to build your personal brand? Like, is that a requirement of building it? Because I feel like people disqualify themselves.

Yeah, people are always doing that. And there's, like, I'm a pretend therapist. I read lots of books on philosophy and therapy. There's this thing called the inner critical voice. If you're not aware of it, you do it to yourself all the time. You hear a voice in your head that says, you're dumb. You can't do this. Who do you think you are? No one will like it. And all these crazy things you hear. So when I was in family therapy, my therapist asked me, whose voice is that that you hear? Well, gosh, that voice sounds a lot like my voice. And then we ran through some exercises. And then it dawned on me. Like a. Like a truck, like, drives into your face. That's the voice of my mom. It sounds like me because it's filtered through my. My brain. So one of the exercises you can do, Dr. Firestones, they have this book called Conquering youg Inner Critical Voice. It's a workbook. It's excellent. I recommend you use it. They say, list out all your inner critical thoughts. Then ask yourself, like, who do you think this came from? And then they ask you to make it more extreme and for you to say it out loud. When you say it out loud, all of a sudden you have this moment like, I would never talk to myself. I would never talk to my child like that. Why am I talking to myself like that now? I used to tell People this, they're like, chris, how do you do this? I'm like, oh, it's just really easy. I'm really not that smart. And my business coach, he's like, you know how insulting it is for you to say that to people? Because you're saying, I'm not that smart. And if you can't figure it out, you must be dumber than not smart. And I was like, why do I say that? Is it some form of false humility? What am I trying to do? Or like, I can't take a compliment, I don't know what it is. I started doing this inner critical voice stuff, and I'm gonna realize something. I love my mom. She's a beautiful human being mom. But when I was growing up, the Asian culture is they compare you to the smartest other cousin that you have. And that would be fine, I guess, except for when that cousin doesn't do well, they compare you to another cousin. So it's a moving target. And so I always thought, man, I'm dumb. I don't know how to read. I'm not good at test taking. I don't memorize things the way my older brother does. So that's the inner dialogue that I'm having. So a lot of what I try to help people with is just healing the inner child and letting that person run out and play. And if you can do that, you're going to do your entire family like a huge service. You can correct for intergenerational unresolved childhood trauma. Because what happens is that stuff comes out again, it's going to come out to your child, and your child's not going to have that to solve that problem on their own. So do them a favor and just cut it off there. But I wanted to share with you one really dumb example, okay? Like reaction videos. Like, why do we even like reaction videos? But we do. And that's not even a lot of creativity. So you know what Reaction videos, right? Somebody does something and somebody either just looks and looks amazed, or they will actually say or do something. There's many versions of this. And you'll see, you've seen this many times. There's a black guy, and he's fully 100% of himself. So somebody is doing some of those life hacks, like squeezing lemon on something to get her to stain. He's like, no way. You telling me? And he's really angry about it, but he does it in such a lovable way. It's so infectious. I don't even care about what's happening. I just care about how he's reacting to that. This is part of remix culture. You don't have to go out there and write War and Peace or tell Two Cities. You don't need to do that. You don't have to write Romeo and Juliet. You just got to take something and just be human about it.

Yeah, I see this a lot, Chris, with green screen videos, even so, they would show the thing that happened in the news or the, you know, the industry thing that you're going to share, and then you give your actual opinion on it. Now, what I find is people kind of stick to the very narrow, boring thing on those, but the few people who actually share their thoughts in an authentic way blow up. I'll give you an example. There's a guy in finance and I can't remember his username on Instagram, but he has blown up Chris in the last year, simply sharing the news, like. But he gives his true, authentic take on it. And he does complain about certain things. And he talks a lot about, like, hey, you know, the price of everything has gone up and we can't afford it, and what do you guys expect us to do? And he has this, like, war going on and dialogue going on as he's doing it. And people can relate to it because he's just being himself. So what I found out, like, with personal brand content, well, with the building a personal brand, you need to create content. Like, we talk about this all the time. Most content today is just noise. It doesn't stand out. But the stuff that does wins. So one of the things that we have to do in content is teach, we have to educate. But I found that the most powerful thing I've done in content creation. I know you've done a lot of this too, is creating that connection with the audience, right? You write and you share content that would allow people to really know you and connect with you. So sharing more personal content, like, what's the thing that people need to do first before they do that? Because I'll tell them, just be yourself. Share your real authentic thoughts. And then they can't for some reason. So, like, what's that step that they need to do to be okay with themselves before they put out to the world so others are going to be okay with it.

I know I've said this before, but getting to know who you are and loving yourself for all your faults and your strengths is the best thing you can do. It's very hard to do this on your own. So I really do recommend you see a therapist that you like and trust and just give it a shot and see what happens. Because what are you doing right now? It's like I'm asking you to make a masterpiece oil painting like Rembrandt or Caravaggio. And the paint is dry. You know, Chris, I'm trying, I'm trying my best right now. So if we have really good raw ingredients and the beautiful thing is you already have all the things that you need. You just have to give yourself permission to, to be that person. I'll give you an example and I'll tell you what the philosophy behind this is. Johnny Cupcakes talked to us about a book he's going to write that he's been working on it. He's almost 80% done for five years going on. You guys remember what he's going to, what he called the book Short Stories from a Short Guy about short sleeve T shirts and we all smiled. He's doing some very powerful things. I want to break it down for you. He's using repetition. Short, short, short. And the third short is a surprise. So he's creating an expectation. Short stories from a short guy for short attention spans, you think? But he's like short sleeve T shirts and that pattern interrupt makes us smile. What else is he doing that's making it really good? He's a short guy. Now normally what happens in our world is we hide from what we think people are going to be critical of us about. If nothing else from Johnny, he's like super transparent. I'm me. If you like me, you like me. If you don't, that's okay. And so the thing that you need to learn is if you're old, don't run away from being old. That's an asset. You're seasoned, as the kids say. You have experience and you've seen things and you've done things. But here's what old people do. I'm not young like the young kids. And then you say, if you're young, what do you do? I don't have any experience. I'm an imposter. You see the problem? No one is happy being themselves. And I've talked to you about this before. When you can heal from that wound that you have, like somebody teased you when, when you were too vulnerable. We know that and we carry that with us until we're old. And we don't even know why we, we do the things that we do. Can you just learn to love that person? And you know what I would say, like wherever I go Whether it's Europe or in America, Europeans are a little tighter with their emotions. All they have to do to make them cry. And I like to make people cry for whatever reason because I'm sick and twisted like that. I really do. Because you know what? We're told we can't cry in public. You can't cry because it's weakness for men and for women. All I have to do is look at somebody in the eye and said, you're okay. You've always been okay, and I love you just for who you are. And then the waterworks happen because no one has said that to them. And who the hell am I? I'm nobody, right?

I'm going to cry.

I mean, can you just feel that? And there's a magic word if you want to make people cry. I've secretly discovered this recently, is all you need to do. You're home. You are home. I mean, even saying it makes me choked up. Choke up. You know, because we all feel like we don't belong. No matter how successful you are. I don't care if you're like the perfect shape, size and whatever. Everyone is broken in some kind of way. Now let me turn this around so we don't have to like, go to therapy right afterwards. Okay?

It's getting woo on us. But what's interesting is this is so important because if you're not. If you don't fix this, your brand's not gonna work.

Okay, so there's. I'm. I'm oddly fascinated by weird things like guerrilla warfare. You guys understand guerrilla warfare? And sends you the Art of War, which, like every business guru tells you to read, but I haven't read it. You. But there's an idea in that. It's like you make your strengths, your weaknesses, and you make. I'm sorry, your weaknesses, your strength, and you make your enemies strength, their weakness. That's it. Because it's asymmetrical warfare. You cannot beat them by doing what they do. They have more resources, they're better equipped, they're better trained. And so you got to figure a way to make their strength become their liability. And if you look at yourself, Johnny's like, my weakness is I'm a short guy. He just flipped that around. He made that an asset. Because that title does not work. Short stories from a 6 foot 2 guy about shorts. See how it doesn't work? He just leans into that and, you know, I don't think John is still here. I saw him skate away, but John's like saying to me, like, you know, your fashion thing, Chris, I'm inspired by you. I just can't do it. I'm just not like, you see the voice of no and negativity. Like in one breath, he can tell me three negative things about him already. And I said to him, john, please don't talk to yourself like that. It hurts me hearing that. Like, I feel ill for you saying that. Why would you put a box around yourself and say, I'm limited by all these things and you haven't done it before. If somebody told you you can't be successful in this industry, you're screw you. If somebody says you can only make this amount of money, you would say, screw you. But all of a sudden you go around and say, I can't write content. I'm not funny, I'm not interesting, I'm not charismatic. I can't command people's attention on stage. Well, guess what? That will become your reality. Your words shape your world. So the most dangerous thing is to use those words and define yourself in this way. So what we need to do is we need to use less violent language when we're describing how we feel about things. And we do it all the time. We're judging ourselves, we're judging others all the time. That's why no one will make anything like Neil, there's 60 people hardcore in this room, right?

Yes.

How many people are making content on the regular in the spirit of the way that you think they should be making it? Let's not put anybody on notice.

But I'm just saying, I would say 10.

10.

I mean, super consistently doing it well, being themselves.

It's like 10% or. No, that's more than 10%.

Yeah. Somewhere in the. It's probably like below 20% of the room.

Correct. Okay. And I think you're being generous, probably right.

I don't want to be me.

I don't want to be high single digit. And it's pretty standard. You, you, you might start something and then you won't do something for three months. Or you might do something and you know what happens? You self sabotage. Because you know what you do? You're like, this is not going to work. This is stupid. My face is stupid. I hate my voice. And you know what, when you go to the camera, you, you sound terrible because you're like, your jaws all locked up and you're like all tight. And people can feel that. They can feel it right through that lens. What you're saying to them is, I'm not comfortable. Please do not watch this. So what do they do? They don't watch it. Then you go, see, I told you this doesn't work. I knew it. No one likes me. No one cares. I tell you this not from like a high and mighty place. I've gone through this battle. I still go through this battle on the daily. My team's like, chris, you need to record this video. I'm like, oh, my God, I have to record this video. Okay, what am I going to do? I think I need to clean the studio first.

Yeah.

Honey, do you need help with the laundry? What can I do? It's like, I don't want to do this. And you know, seven, eight o' clock rolls around. It's too dark now. I have studio lights. That's a lie. I know it's a lie. It's too dark right now. Tomorrow's a good time to do this. And then tomorrow's. I'm like, I haven't exercised in a while, Neil. I need to go exercise now. I'm doing everything I can to delay this. So we're self sabotaging. And, you know, I just think that the devil doesn't need a friend. And don't be the best friend of the devil. Stop telling yourself these things.

Yeah, it's huge. I think also, you know what I've learned from people in entrepreneurship who are also creative. This small segment I talked about at the beginning of the episode. They just aren't insecure, you know, like they just stopped being insecure at some point. And it's wild. Like how you can have incredible success with content and business by just not being secure. It wasn't even that they're the smartest people. They just stopped caring about, like, all this and, and talking negatively about all the things that they do.

I'll share this thing that Seth Godin said on our interview. He goes, chris, it's probably not realistic not to be afraid or to not not be afraid. Right? He goes, but what we have to do as creative people, we have to learn to dance with fear. We embrace it, we bring it in. It's like, you know what? I am afraid, but I can, I can build off this. Maybe the being afraid makes me rehearse a little bit more or to make sure, like I have a clear point or I'm articulating clearly or I'm bringing some emotion and humanity into this. Fear could be a good teacher. So we can't get rid of fear, but we can dance with it. And I like that idea. See how he turns that phrase. Dance with Fear dance. I mean, I hate dancing, but it sounds fun. We could do this dance with fear. Yeah.

I think this is something really powerful that now that we're at this point in the conversation, that people can actually do. And when you do this one thing, it's going to create so many connections, and I think it's going to be like the biggest accelerant to your personal brand growth, and that is to share something, you know, be vulnerable and share something negative about yourself and how maybe you overcame that. I found that vulnerability is the biggest strength on social. Like, that's the truth. That's the story that you're telling, because so many other people are struggling with the same thing that you are. There was a guy in our group, Chris, in our first cohort of our content group, who told me that he joined the group and he wasn't posting videos. And then he kept. Weeks went on and he was taking all the notes, he was on all the calls, but he wasn't posting any videos. So I just DM'd him. And I said, bro, what's going on? Like, why haven't you posted anything? And he goes, left me on red. Didn't respond. And I asked him again. I said, just question mark. And he goes, you know what, Neil? Like, during the pandemic, I put on like £80. And I just, like, I'm like, ashamed of. Like, when I look at the camera, I just see a fat dude. I'm not gonna. I don't want to do the videos. Like, I shot one. I'm never gonna post it. And I was like, so what would happen, bro? Are you on any sort of journey to change this and stuff? He's like, yeah, I'm actually taking it because of this. It allowed me to look at myself in the mirror. I'm going to take this seriously. I'm going to lose weight. I said, well, bro, what if you just talked about that? Forget all the educational content we're going to do right now. We'll do that. But what if you just talked about your weight loss journey and he just shared one post? Unfortunately, he was not consistent. He stopped doing this, but he just shared this one single post about how he put on all this weight during the pandemic and that caused him to not want to put himself out there on social, and now he's going to change that and he's going to start doing xyz. The comments, bro, were lit. It was like, so much support, people reaching out. I'm right there with you. Like, dude, so much connection. And that was just one post. I wish the dude would have stuck with that. I wish I would have had the bandwidth to keep nudging him every week to make him post. But like, that's it, right? Just sharing that negative thing. So like, what's a. What kind of framework or what kind of thing can. I know you don't like to be like, oh, there's no exact process. It's different for everyone. There's no like formula. It's always going to be different. But if people like that, they like having a process. What is something we can give people on how they would share that story? Because you and I did this with the group a couple years ago and I got the same feedback. This was one of their most powerful pieces on social.

Can you, can you rephrase the question? Like, I want to make sure I understand the question.

What is a. What is like, oh, this is the way Chris does to get clarity. I remember him doing this with me in the first interview I did with him and he was like, I was like, I couldn't ask the next question because I was like, oh man, my question sucks. Which it did. Okay, so good call. So the question is, I want to share something personal on social. Should it be a video, should it be a written post? What if I ramble on and on? How do I make an effective personal post to share something vulnerable on social media?

Okay, thanks. Let's make the assumption that you're really not that comfortable on camera and you've not done like a thousand talks. We'll start with that baseline. So I'll design it for that. Okay. You don't want to try to just turn the camera and start talking because you will ramble. You won't have a point. It'll go all over the place. And then of course, then it's a self fulfilling prophecy. Again, you say, I'm not good at this. So I think you do need to write. Writing is the beginning of thinking. And David Baker talks about this. You gain clarity through articulation. Let's just write. So we know that if we were to tell you to write like a great play or a screenplay, you would probably fall because you don't understand how these things work. And these things are very formulaic. Once you understand the reason why your friend's post worked is because he talked about his struggles. And if you guys remember that slide, I said Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling. The first rule is what? The audience admires characters for their struggles more than their success. You know what we do, we just go on the Internet and talk about our success all the time. First of all, it's really boring. Second of all, it looks like you're flexing non stop. So the second mistake that you'll make when you're creating content is you'll make an ad. I don't know about you, I pay money not to see ads. Would I follow you? No. So if we can just stop, if we understand just those two points, we're gonna do really well. Okay? Stop making ads. Learn how to be a good storyteller. Build audience community. Find your voice. That's a valuable thing. And when people start following, you're like, whoa, I love making content. Now you guys like me, you get value from this. And then every once in a while, cause you gotta make some money. Throw an ad in there. But then the ad doesn't have to be a sneaky Trojan horse thing. You can just say, hey, buy my course, join my mastermind. And they'll want to give you money because you've shown up, you've done that. Zero moment of truth. You spent seven hours with them across 11 touch points, maybe four places. Like, if you can do that, I'm telling you. And it's a long game to play. I'm going to tell you this right now because some of you will get it right away. But I almost wish for you that you don't get it right away because you need to have the discipline and, and also just putting in the reps so that you get really good. You know, some people are naturally talented at sports and they just excel, but they don't have the discipline. And I just saw this clip from Kobe Bryant and they were talking about Kobe Bryant's career and he said he's a ball hog. He doesn't pass it to his teammates. He goes, well, when I show up to practice and you show up five minutes before practice is over, I'm not going to give you the ball. So this is about you guys putting in like if. Whether you have talent or not. The one thing I know that will make you better is having the discipline and the reps. And it's horrible. It's like it's not going to be good for about 50 posts. Okay. So we'd understand. The audience wants to hear about how we struggle because then we become really relatable. Johnny was up here. He's not the best presenter by far. He has like weird verbal tics that he does sometimes. His stories were a little disjointed and he was like Lost in his own slides, I think. But I think he won over almost everybody. He had me all choked up. Johnny, stop doing this. I'm about to break down right now. Because he shared so authentically about his business, about losing his mom and trying to deal with that, about someone burglarizing his place that he thinks is a former employee. And it's kind of broken his spirit for humanity. About how he bought three homes next to each other so they can all be together. So they. What he didn't say, short of saying is so we can all die together. It was beautiful and it was dark, but it was 1000% Johnny. And I'm sure many of you thought, I'd like to work with this guy. I want to tap into his geniosity. But he wasn't up here trying to sell you on that.

I asked him in the back of.

The room, can they help? I'm sure, I'm sure. And I mean, many of you should work with him because he's brilliant. I've known a lot of really creative people. I don't know that many people like Johnny. He's just. It's kind of like deep in him. It runs deep. So when you're writing your story, write it out. Ask yourself, where does this story end? Rick was up here earlier, right? And Rick told a great story. And then Neil does what Neil does. He's like, bro, where's your mic drop moment? And he gave it to us. And I got the girl and I ran three marathons.

He thought it wasn't relevant.

How could he not? That's a bookend. You guys know what a bookend is? You open it up with something, you kind of meander throughout, and then you end it on the thing that you started out with, the thing that Mike didn't let us have for whatever reason. Like, we don't know who was on the phone. Yeah.

And so for people watching or listening, the context is we just had a gentleman come on stage. He told a process for his business that worked really well. And at the end of his eight minute talk, he just said, that's it, guys, thank you so much. Walked off. People applauded. And I said, great job, Rick. But you kind of left us hanging there, bro. Like, what's your story to end this with if you want to make it better? And he said that, hey, you know what? I have that story. Can I say it? And he just yelled it off, Mike. And he said, hey, man, I have, I've done this process has changed my life. As I told You. But the thing I didn't tell you was the biggest unlock was it allowed me to spend time with the people who I love the most. And it allowed me to pursue my dream of running in a marathon. And not only did I run in one marathon, I run three marathons. And I got the girl. And he pointed to his wife. I was like, dang, bro. Like, that's it. Like, imagine. Like, nobody will remember the form that he shared with the process, but they won't forget him because he shared that story at the end.

So if you start with the end in mind, everything becomes much easier, right? So nowhere the thing ends. The reason why, when we watch movies, the reason why we watch the end, it's because what they know how to do is create and release tension. No tension. No one's watching. It's very boring. And if they gave it all away, then you're like, okay, I'm done. I'm gonna stop. So if you write the end, then you know how to tell the story so that it leads to that moment at the end, and all the other stuff becomes unnecessary. So start at the end. What is it that. How are you gonna end this story that's going to force you to be clear about why you're telling the story in the first place?

It's like, what's the lesson? Like, what's that mic drop?

It doesn't even have to be a lesson, to be honest. It would be great if it's a lesson, but just know how the story ends. I think what Mike was doing, when you tell a story, and then that happens, and so. And then. And then it's like, oh, you're killing me.

Yeah, it's like some people talk, Chris, and. And you have this thing. Is this ever going to end, is what you're thinking? Like, it's just going on and on and on. And, like, I don't know, we're already, you know, just on this weird, windy road, and I feel like the best people feel like, okay, we're headed someplace. This is coming. We're going there. We're on this journey with you. And then I got the girl. I got the thing. My life changed. I made money, whatever it is. And I think, like, a lot of us have come from, you know, what's that story for you? It's gonna be different for every single person who's watching and listening. But, like, what's the thing you struggle with in business? And where are you at now? Maybe you're a product of your own. Maybe you're your Own case study. You know, that's the most powerful thing I've done in. In the forward business is like, I was unknown. I became known. I was super not good on video. I was introverted. I became comfortable with it. Here's what happened to me. I'm teaching it now. Same thing with you, Chris. Like, you talk about the things you did in business, the mistakes you made, how they. How you overcame them, and then how you became successful. Like, that's really cool because you're, like, practicing what you preach. Also, people in this industry that we're speaking to, real estate, mortgage, like, many of us, actually got passionate about the thing because we bought the property and saw the wealth it created. We saw how our family thrived because we became homeowners. I rarely ever see someone in the industry talk about this. It's almost like, no. You're saying no for the audience. I think that's what everyone is saying. Like, nobody would be interested in that story. They just want to know the rates today. They just want to know the deal of the week, bro. Like, how do you even get into this industry? Why do you even care? Like, how did. How did owning property change your life? I'd love to know. You know, like, even if that video doesn't go viral, like, it connects with people, and I feel like more people should tell that story. So starting this is hard. In terms of content creation, would you recommend for people who are not posting videos consistently? What's the strategy to get better at that? Is it simply reps, or should they focus on writing? How do they get better to be more consistent? Because everyone is asking, how can I be consistent? On social media, if you start with.

Writing, it's going to get better because you see in words, like, visually, like, what's happening and how you can edit your story to build more attention or it's too crazy, or this is unnecessary detail. And then when you have something that you think is good, give it a shot and try and tell that story. And if that process works, just rinse and repeat. Just keep writing. And I think Mike had a really good exercise to give you prompts on stories. There's one that Kendra hall does, which he's like, the nouns, the people, places, and things. Just write nouns. What are the people that have touched you in your life? Where the places you've been? Where have you lived? And she goes, you can even dig into it in terms of, like, the homes in which you lived in. We moved around a lot. So every house has a story and a memory locked to It. And those become really great buckets for stories. And the things, like somebody, I forget who it was, was sharing about their comic book collection and their wife threw it away. It was you, you know, so that had a story. Just look at all the things in your life. If it has an emotional residue, it's an opportunity to tell a story and just get into the practice of telling a good story. Not a. Not a mortgage story, not a loan story, not a like, why I started my business story. Save that for when you're really good. Just keep practicing telling a really simple story. And for some of you, if you like podcasts, I'm going to recommend the Moth Radio Hour Moth, like the thing that flies around. All they do is tell stories, and they're like national champions, international champions of storytelling. There's one in particular, it was the first time that I think they had in Kentucky, and it happened earlier this year. So if you search for the Moth Radio Hour Kentucky, there's a gentleman who tells a story. And I was telling Mo. You guys remember Mo? Does some of you remember Mo? I was like, mo, you gotta listen to this. It's so good. It is so freaking good. He listens to bro. Why is that so good? I hate to say this, but I said, he's black. I can tell now. He has a deep Southern accent, but the way he told the story was like. It was so beautiful. The cadence, the rhyme structure. I'm like, this guy's, like, doing something on the side because he is so good. He goes, chris, it's not. It's a white guy. I swear to you, it's a white guy. I'm like, I might be wrong. Looks it up. Black guy. Listen to that story. That is a masterclass. Copy that story. It begins something like, we're at the foot of a cave. We're about to enter it and remember, there was a watch and something else, and there were three of us. As best I can recall, I'm like, I'm in. Wherever the story's going, I'm in. I just did a horrible version of it. Listen to it. It's so good. There's so many twists and turns in the story and the way he tells it that if you can learn from that, you know, what we do is, like, when we have a template of what works, it's much easier to do something similar to what works. Study how they tell stories on the Moth. They have a great book. It's called how to Tell the Story by the Moth. Do not buy the book. Buy the audiobook because in the book you can just read the stories, but when you listen to the audiobook, you can actually hear the storytellers in their own voice. I can't tell you how many times I've been in the driveway, like, crying, like, hoping my kids don't see me, like, what is dad doing? And I just sit in the, in the driveway. I'm like, I gotta finish this. There's no way I can stop. Wouldn't you like to be that kind of storyteller that people look forward to hearing your stories, that people invite you on stage to hear your story? And by the way, you sell mortgages or you're, you're, you're in the real estate business. Didn't even matter. Yeah, they love you first.

So there's this guy, I just. Listen, I'm glad you brought this up, Chris, because I was just listening to one of my favorite podcasts is My First Million. They talk to entrepreneurs and it's been blown up. And one of the guests recently was this guy, Mr. Ballin, and he was a Navy Seal. And he got out of the military and came back and he wanted to become a content creator full time. He was posting content, copying other people, and nothing was working. And his wife's like, dude, you need to get a job here. Like, this is not working out. So he leaves this. He. He tells a story much better than I am, but he left that little vacation area with his wife. His wife's telling him he needs to get a job, figure this shit out. And he went into the hotel room and just told the story about something that happened in the battlefield, like all these things that he's talking about. And it blew up, like, in the way he told it. And then he just went ham on telling stories. Years later, he's hired somebody from the Mr. Beast team and he's a full time content creator now, making tens of millions of dollars brand deals. He's got millions of people across the Internet and it all came from telling good stories. So you guys should check out that episode as well. It's on my first million. So what I want to do in the 10 minutes is, if you don't mind, Chris, I want to ask you a few questions that people don't ask you. Okay? Like, people, if you don't mind.

Like, we have a hard out at 12:45.

Yeah, we're going to go a little bit longer.

It's a soft out. Yeah, I need to check because I might miss my flight here, but keep going. Okay, Ask the question.

Okay, so there's two questions, and then we can wrap. So the first question is you. Everybody speaks and they have, like an agenda or a CTA or something at the end of their conversation or at the end of their talk or at the end of their video. And when you're selling, you're selling. I noticed Chris, like, you're like, hey, I have this thing. I remember doing a live with you, and you told me the purpose of the live was to let people know about one of your programs and enroll them. And I was like, okay, he's probably going to teach, and then he'll let them know about the thing at the end. We started the call, and the first thing you said out of your mouth was, the purpose of this live is to let you know about my program. There's a link in the thing if you want to get more information. And then we got into the conversation. You, like, sold up front. So I thought that was interesting. But what I found was, like, for other stuff, when you're not selling, nobody knows. Kind of like, what's your agenda? I mean, Trevor asked you this. You were speaking at an event with us, and we're like, dude, you spoke, you did this. What do you want to happen at the end of the talk? What's your agenda? Because everybody else had. It had an agenda. You want people to like you or what?

That's it. I want people to like me, but that's not why I'm doing it. So just to give you context, Trevor had asked this question. Every speaker on stage has an agenda. And I said, they have a secret agenda. He goes, it's not a secret agenda because we all know what it is. It's because they want you to sign up for something, buy something, or invite him somewhere, right? You guys feel that? Can you smell it a mile away? And anybody that calls you or DMs you in your social accounts, you know what their agenda is, bro. Have you talked, have you thought about coaching programs? Like, oh, you're going to sell me a coaching or how to run a coaching? You need more appointments. Your appointment setter, aren't you. You can tell. So he's like, I can't figure you out. You get on stage, you do your thing, and I don't know what it is you're trying to do. So it made me really kind of aware of two things. Number one, is your not so secret agenda clear to everybody? If it is, there might be a reason why they don't want to tune in. So the best way not to have an Agenda. A hidden agenda is not to have an agenda. My agenda is to teach. To be the best, most effective teacher I can be. So whenever I'm invited, as much as I hate public speaking, it's an opportunity for me to try new materials, to see what sticks and what doesn't. Because every time I make some mistakes, I go back to the lab, I try to make it better. So my only agenda is to be the best teacher I can be. But before that, my primary agenda is to make sure the people who book me, Neil and Trevor, to make sure I've honored the decision for them to bring me on. Because they're parting with time and treasure, but also goodwill with you. If they run a bunch of really bad speakers up, you might not show up again. And word will spread. As Eric Garrison would say, do a good job, they tell one person. Do a bad job, they tell 10. And in my younger days, I used to throw the event organizer producer under the bus. And then I realized that's a bad thing I was doing. Because if the mic wasn't working, display wasn't. I'm like, you know, you think they could spend some money on the displays because it's not working. I've grown up a little bit. I just move on. I'm like, it's not working, but that's okay. We're going to get through this. So my first order of business is to make sure he got what he came for. That's why I spend time talking to him, brainstorming. What does your team want? What does your audience want? And I notice a lot of times speakers will come on, they could give a flying F what Neil wants. Now, you might not know it, but we talk about it in backstage, and what we say is, they're probably not coming back. They're probably not going to get recommended. So my agenda is to serve. To serve to my fullest. And if I can do that, then I feel good about myself.

And then you get what you want in the end.

What's that?

Somebody books you. For another thing. Somebody reaches out to you. Somebody reaches out to you with a business opportunity. Somebody wants to talk to you in the hallway and connect with you and hire you. It's just crazy when people are real. So many more benefits come, and every single person. You know, yesterday, Mike did this text thing where he said, what do you think about Neil? And then people texted in their thoughts about me. And I'm sure they're be nice because I'm here. But there's people who said one or two of them. I screenshotted. He said Neil just tells it like it is. I feel like I can connect with him. It's relatable. I think it's the hidden agenda thing, you know, like we're just here to serve the group and people can feel that. And I think like you said, people's BS meter is really high right now. They're like really tuned in. When it's salesy or even the hint of that, they can check right away. So I feel like many people have a hidden agenda with every piece of content they post and. And it's killing their content. Like, yeah, it's the reason why you're not getting any views because every single thing is like they already know your agenda.

Yeah. I think what, what we're doing here is we don't realize this, but I'm giving you an hour of my time. But I'm taking 60 hours of your time. The ratio should be something I need to think about and be aware of. Right. So this should be an act of generosity. I should be giving more than I'm taking and I have to like, eat my own dog food. So if I say lead with value, don't worry about selling, don't make ads. Cause no one tunes in for that, then I have to lead with value. And if your content is good enough, if you've done this consistently enough with like a really clear mind and open heart, they'll find a way to give you money. They just will. Like, I like you. Do you have a program? Is there something else that you do? A friend needs some help with this. Can you talk to them or when.

You make a call to action, like you said, they'll take advantage of it.

Oh, I'll be clear about that.

Yeah.

And the reason why I open up a webinar with I'm here to sell you something because I don't want there to be any secret about it. I'm laying my cards on the table. I want 10 of you to sign up for by the end of this webinar. Then I can do whatever I want. And everybody's clear. It's not some secret weird Trojan horse thing.

Yeah, I love that. So just wrapping up. Chris, the I wanted. Somebody mentioned this to me and I want to ask you. I know you're a big movie fan. You always incorporate movies into your talks and into your lessons and you talk about this all the time. What does Neo and the Matrix have to do with personal brand?

Thanks for asking me this question. This is Neo. Not Neo.

Neo. Neo, Neo.

So I'm a big consumer and lover of pop culture, right? And the Matrix is like probably my top two, three films of greatest films of all time. And I'll argue with you to the death. I'll die on that sword. And so Neo wakes up from this thing and he's pulled into the rabbit hole or whatever Morpheus is talking to him and he goes, I need to send you to see the Oracle because you're the One. And I don't know if you notice, but Neo is an anagram for one. He is literally the One. Just scrambled the letters, right? He goes to see the Oracle and the Oracle says to him, sorry kid, you're not the One. And Neo's not disappointed because he doesn't believe he's the One either. He's like, but Morpheus made me do it. Like my friend egged me on and here I am and he's about to walk away. And she goes, not in this lifetime. She just drops it right in there. And the audience is like, nah, it's a throwaway line. Who cares? Towards the end of the movie, Neil confronts the agents. He dies. And it's Trinity's kiss that resurrects him. There's a, there's a very Jesus Christ parallel here, okay? So he's like, you can't be the One until you're resurrected because you have to realize something, that the love, that Trinity, Trinity, you know, the Father, Son, the Holy Ghost kind of thing brings him back to life. And then now he can see everything and he becomes the One in his resurrection. And now the bullets that he was dodging before, he just stops and he picks it up and casually looks at it, throws on the floor, and he fights them one handed. Now it's not even a problem for him. Why do I love this story so much? I believe most really well written media plays. They're not designed for you just to watch. They're lessons. They're sending a signal to you. But most of us don't even see it. So I feel like I'm Morpheus and I'm looking at all of you and you are the One. You are the One. But not in this lifetime. I don't think you need to die, but you need to be reborn. You have to really dig into who you are and understand that. So when I see these movies, like I'm in tears. My wife's like, what's wrong with you? Like, you know what they're saying? There's a message that's being transmitted through this light and it's telling you something, but we just think it's a. It's just a film to entertain us. When you can see this, you realize that's not a wall. That is not air you're breathing. Neo, there are no constraints to what you can do. There are no limitations. Except for the ones you impose upon yourself. I think you're the One. It's a question if you believe it or not.

That's a bar. That's so powerful, man. Thank you so much, Chris, we appreciate you.