INBOUND Bold Talks: Bryan Kramer "How to Embrace Your Inner Focker"

You know what's interesting is two minutes before I came on stage, I got mic'd up. Well, five minutes before. And I walked out, I told the sound guys, I said, can you guys make sure that this is turned off when I go to the restroom? Because I've done that before. And it's every speaker's worst nightmare, right? You walk into the restroom wearing a mic. Everything that has happened to me in my past is so interesting. It's very interesting to hear the bio that she just read and who I really am and what I really think about humans in general, because I really believe that we are all Fockers. And yes, that is a tough word to say. So I'm stressing for the rest of this presentation the word Focker. And I believe that this came to me years ago when I was first dating my wife. And we were watching Meet the Parents. And as I was sitting there watching this awesome movie, she was laughing, gut laughing, and turned towards me several times and finally whispered, why are you not laughing? Why? Because that's my life. Because that happened to me. And they keep telling more stories and I keep getting more and more anxious. So finally, at the end of the movie, she looked at me and she said, you know what? If you want to get married, you need to embrace your inner Focker. And from that time forward, I really wanted to actually, well, get married and understand what it was that took the importance of being a Focker. What is the definition of being a Focker? Because it has so many different meanings. Right? Well, the most important thing for me was looking at the first rule, being genuine. I mean, think about Gaylord Focker, Ben Stiller in the movie, we all loved him because he was genuine. He was so heart. As we heard before he. You knew that what he was talking about, how he expressed himself and how much he wanted his father in law to love him, was all for the better good of himself and for his soon to be wife. We also need to embrace our imperfections. Please raise your hand if you think you're perfect. I thought so. No one's perfect. I kind of set you up for that one. No one is perfect. Perfect doesn't exist. We create our own rules. That creates our own way of being. And it's not around being perfect, it's around creating stories, it's around creating moments. It's about creating memories and finally, sense of humor. And I'm not talking about having a sense of humor yourself, I'm talking about a sense of humor. Because something's about to happen to you, like your zipper being down. You know, I was putting this together, and one of the things that I think stands out the most is imperfection. And as I'm looking at the screen, I started to think, man, I have a crooked nose. And I thought, I need to embrace my own imperfection. Everything that we do is being watched online. And it makes us think for a second, do I really want to share that? What's going to happen? What are people going to think of me? So last night, perfect example, I was with some friends who are actually all in this general area, and we were at dinner, and I took an Uber and went back to my hotel, the Hilton. And I walked into the Hilton, ready to push the button to the elevator, and realized I'm in the wrong Hilton. I thought, I wonder if they have a room for me. So I got in a different Uber and went back to my Hilton that I was supposed to be at. Now, I didn't have to share that story, but I did, because I think this stuff happens to me all the time. I mean, I went into an Uber once that was somebody else's car. These things happen. I mean, come on. But at the end of the day, we all want to be in the circle of trust, right? If I tell you that story, does that help to earn your trust in thinking that I'm a smart person, that you will trust me with your money or your time in investing in my company and having us do digital marketing? Because we're going to be epic. I got in the wrong Uber. I think that that's what makes us human. I think that's what actually connects us. I think that when we actually share those stories, it's why we want to work together. That's what I think. That's what earns you into the circle of trust. If you think about it, moments like this happen all the time. Another thing happened to me last night. A lot of things happened to me last night. Wow. It just dawned on me that this happens a lot. I was sitting there, going over for a couple minutes what I was going to do to convey this slide. How do you embrace the moments? How do you take the one single moment in your life and share or tell that story in a way that gets you into the circle of trust? And how do you do it in a way that you're going to take a risk, you want to get out, and you know that you might fail. You know that this could be something that's not well received. But what do you do? Do you Share it or not, I venture to think that most of us won't. Then all of a sudden, up pops a text on my mobile phone. And it's from my son and it's in all capital letters and it says, I asked her out, she said she'd check her schedule. This is my 11 year old son. I'm like. And I'm not lying. I really asked her out. And I replied back. And I said, what? That's awesome. Congrats. And then he replied back. He goes, yes, and she's going to check her schedule. And I thought to myself, oh, Henry, we talked about you just asking for her name. But he went for the gusto. So. But this is what it's about, right? Like taking a moment where you think you're going to fail and just going for it. In the middle of this, I thought, what a great example. There are moments that happen all the time. The unexpected moments are the ones that only we can see. This is me in the cars ride at Disneyland. And it was so fun because I'm in the backseat taking a GoPro. My wife is sitting right next to me, my son and my daughter are sitting in the front. Two right in front. And I swear to God, the camera that snaps, it snaps the shot right on the way down got it at the perfect moment and turned my daughter into Jesus. Now, here's the interesting thing about that. There is no way that a robot or any kind of automation out there that we're all afraid of and talk about could capture this moment and know that that's my daughter. And I swear to God, she really is a beautiful girl. But at this point in time, it got just the right moment. And I thought, how cool for a human to share a moment around context. That's something so fun and funny. So really the point that I'm trying to make is how do we maintain a level of not being too polished, too robotic, capturing the moments, sharing them out and living in the moment so that everybody wants to encourage and be a part of it. At the end of the day, I really believe in staying humble. You saw in the movie, Gaylord Fochar did not become a doctor and still had the scores to become a doctor. His passion was around being a nurse, and he followed that passion and he was humble enough to share that. So I'll leave you with a final story. This always happens to me on the way to a keynote. I don't know why, but the Focker moments happen right as I'm coming into a room. So I'm in Singapore and I'm walking down the street and these three Singapore ladies, really lovely ladies, they approach me and they want to take selfies with me. And here all I thought was, my social presence has grown to other countries. I'm famous. And they, like, have me. One lady has me sign her arm. I was like, wow. Oh, my gosh. And then she says, just as before they were leaving, they said, do you know who Justin Timberlake is? What do you think of him? And I said, he's talented. He's really talented. And then they said, well, in broken English, they said to me, it was really, really nice to meet Joey Fatone. I was like, wait, no. And I didn't correct them because I thought I will ruin their moment. So these are. These are the moments, right? These are the moments that we all have in life that I believe are shareable. The ones that really make us nervous. The ones that approach us in that moment where you're like, how am I going to react? How am I going to respond with this awkward situation? And this applies to brands and people. We all have these moments. But it's okay to be imperfect. As long as you are who you are, it's okay to laugh. And it's how you earn your way into the circle of trust. Now, this is a group participation exercise. Are you guys ready? Okay, repeat after me. I. I'm going to do it again. I am. Fucker. Congratulation.