Ep. 131 Your Unforgettable Brand with Rory Vaden

Hey there, Mark Brown. It's a special day when someone that comes to you for advice blows away your mentor. This is a guy I thought I worked hard until I heard Rory Vaden's story. Oh, my goodness. I thought he worked hard in the world championship. Then I found out how he got his book published into bestseller. And by the way, we're not talking, like, Amazon subcategory of a subcategory of a subcategory. We're actually talking an actual bestseller, Mark.

Like New York Times. Yeah. And the cool thing is it's like I have a sense of pride because I actually coached our guest today when he was competing in Toastmasters years ago. And I've seen him surpass me. And it thrills my heart to know and to say that I had a chance to work for him. He employed me, which shows his growth and his success. Darren, let's let the audience meet our friend and brother, Rory Vaden.

The unforgettable Rory Vaden.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deluded deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown. Mark Brown.

Your life tells a story, and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentations.

Ahas.

Let's dive right in.

Hey, Darren. It is my thrill to introduce Rory Bean. We're gonna dive right in. Rory, how are you, man?

Oh, guys, I'm doing so good. You, you both coached me. You, Ed Tate, Craig Valentine. I mean, y' all are like some of my my dads. You're like my, my, My four dads.

Well, with my gray hair, yeah, I do feel like your dad.

We' lot of people, very few and none that I'm really aware of, have like, blown us away business wise. And we could not be more thrilled. You're one of the hardest working people and helped more people, touched more people. We're thrilled to have you on. And there's nothing cooler than watching a mentee surpass mentors.

Yeah, we're really proud of you, man. I mean, I recall when I first got to get. You were in the Toastmasters contest and you'd done so well. You got to the final and you blew the audience away with the technology that's not used very often, where you began to talk with your back to the audience. Only one other person has done that, and she Finished second also in the world championship. That was Xifeng Cherie Su from China. And I'm curious, as a presenter, first of all, you've done so many things. I want to go back to presenting and being unforgettable. You were unforgettable in a couple of moments in your speech contest journey. What got you started with the idea of presenting? You're doing sales and doing very, very well as a young. But you got into speaking. What led you to speaking from your career?

Well, I mean, I actually was lucky because I identified this career path as being the one for me when I was very young. I remember being in high school, I was on student council and we controlled the budget for the speakers. I mean, Mark, you know, you spoke at schools for years and we hired this guy for $1,000. And I mean, I was like, what, we're gonna pay this dude a thousand dollars to come hold a microphone for an hour? And I was like, this is the career for me. Like, I was born for this. And then I saw a couple speakers when I was in college that were just so good. I mean, they just changed the trajectory of my life. In a one hour speech. This is what I was gonna do. And so what. I was actually in college. I was doing this thing, I was going door to door. And so I was raised by a single mom and we didn't have a ton of resources. And my mom, you know, said, you will go to, you will go to college and you will get a full ride scholarship because there's no way I'll be able to afford it. And. And so I, I did get a full ride scholarship, but I had to pay all my living expenses. And so I, I took this summer job knocking on doors 14 hours a day, six days a week, paying all of my own expenses. And at one of our, like, rallies, they brought in this speaker, Eric Chester. And he was a Hall of, he was a hall of famer. And Eric changed my life. Like, it was so compelling and so moving. And he mentioned that he had a son who was in school at the University of Colorado Boulder, and I was at the University of Denver. And so I went up to Eric after and I said, one day, I want to do what you do, but right now I just need your son's phone number because I'm going to recruit him. And Eric made a pact with me. He was like, if you personally mentor my son in this program, like, this was a few weeks later, he said, I will personally mentor you. And this is what led me to you guys. I Don't even know if you know this story, because the first time Eric and I sat down, we were at Einstein's bagels on, like, 6th and Colfax. And Eric said, look, he said, rory, I will only give you advice under one condition, and that is that you do exactly what I tell you to do. He's like, I don't have time to waste. I don't want to waste my breath. He actually self admitted. He's like, I don't play well with others. I don't mentor people because. And he's a bodybuilder. I mean, you guys know, but, you know, he's six. Six and just ripped and huge. And he said, if you don't do exactly what I tell you to do, then this relationship is over. And I was like, yes, sir, Mr. Chester, I'll do, you know, I'll do anything you want. Just tell me whatever it is. And goes, okay. He goes, lesson number one. The difference between a good speaker and a great speaker is 1000 presentations. And then he said this to me verbatim. He said, go out, give 1,000 presentations, and then I will tell you step two. Wow. And I was. That was what he told me. And I was like, how? But I don't. I'm here to learn. Where do I go? And he. And he said, join Toastmasters. He said, the fastest way is join Toastmasters. And I had no idea. And so I looked up a Toastmasters Club. I went there and, you know, it was Cherry Creek Toastmasters. And the day I was there, there was this. This legend who walked in the room. People worshiped the ground that this guy walked on. And I was like, who is this guy? Well, turns out it's Ed Tate. Who?

His home club.

Of course, you guys, his home club. And so I was there with Ed Tate, and I thought, well, gosh, maybe if I could win the World Championship of Public Speaking, that would give me the credibility that I need to launch my career. And so that was why I went so hard at it. And for those of you that don't know, I did not win the World Championship of Public Speaking. I made it to the finals in 2006, and I lost. And then I made it back in 2007, and I lost again, but I lost higher. I was number two. But, you know, I like to say, guys, that any old normal person can go to the World Championship of Public Speaking once and win. It takes a real man to go twice and lose both times. Man, that was the start. So I did that. And then, you know, we started a. We started our first company and we did. We grew to an eight figure training company and we spoke all across the globe and then got my csp, was inducted into the cpae, you know, the hall of. The Professional Speaking hall of Fame. It's so great because Eric, I had the honor of Eric was my person inducting me into the hall of fame. And I remember telling him after, you know, Eric, I still can't wait to find out what step two is on this journey. So anyways, that's part of what led me to you guys and you had a huge role in my life. So thank you both.

Hey, thanks for coming back and spending some time with us because you truly lived an inspiring story. You do the work that most people aren't willing to. So I want to get to branding because I think a lot of people who listen to this really struggle with that and don't know where to go. But first, I want to tap into what you've learned by doing the work. What do you think it takes to create an unforgettable present? I can still remember Slam, slam from your presentation. What do you think it is that makes a presentation unforgettable?

Well, I mean, your mantra, Stage time, stage time, stage time is. Is a huge part of what it comes down to. I think there's. It's basically education, practice, and feedback. I mean, one of the things that I do is I relentlessly study something, Right. And so I had to learn from Darren because he was the only person I could find in the world that was teaching people how to be funny. And I was like, I can't believe this guy's teaching. This is like a magician exposing his secrets. And Mark, teaching about storytelling and your charisma and how to use the stage and develop characters and Craig Valentine about how to use stories. And so I was studying profusely. You know, I got my education from you guys, really on the art of speaking. I learned the art of speaking from you guys, and then I had to kind of learn the business of speaking. It started at nsa, but if you just look at the presentation itself, you know, I received in my two years going to the World Championship, I did 304 presentations for free. And I watched over 1100 hours of film and I received over 3000 written evaluations. Wow. I took dozens of courses. The last money I had in my account, I spent flying to Darren's training. The humor. The humor boot camp. It was like literally the last money I had in a checking account. And I think putting together an Unforgettable presentation and building a great career as a speaker. There's an element of it that comes down to being great at anything, which is that you have to want it so bad that you're willing to risk whatever it takes to get it. You're willing to work as hard as it. As you have to to get it. And that was. The thing was, like, I wasn't the funniest. I was very young. I had very little stage time, but I thought, nobody will outwork me, and if I do the work, I think it'll take me far. And that is the. That is the thing. But it's. There's this element of just going. I feel called to this. I'm going to lean into that, and I will do whatever it takes to make this dream possible. And I think what most people do is they have a dream for something and they go, oh, that's a silly thought. I could never do that. Or, that would never work because of this, or could I do that? And one of the greatest distinctions in the mindset of an ultra performer is they don't ask, can I or should I? They simply say, how could I do that? How could that be possible? If that were going to come true, what would have to happen? And so instead of immediately getting rid of the dream and writing the dream off as this crazy idea, they just hang with it for a second and go, okay, well, that's a big. That's a big dream. That life would be very different from where I am. But what. What would have to happen? And for me, it was like, I have to learn to be funny. I have to learn to be more confident on stage, which means I have to get education, which means I have to practice, I have to get coaching. I have to get feedback. I have to watch myself on film. I have to watch other people on film. And then that's it, right? Like, it's just a timeline of action steps that most people don't take because they talk themselves out of it right away.

I have one quick question mark before you jump in. 1100 hours of film. Okay, I'm done. You can't replace that with anything. Now you got the education, too, so you're working really hard in the right direction. We tell people, we preach this. To watch yourself on video, to watch your own recordings. I'm gonna. I know the answer to this, but I want to hear you tell our listeners. How hard was it to watch yourself on video?

Oh, my gosh. It was painful. It was painful. And still to this day, the Technique that I use and that I tell speakers and the people that we work with at Brand Builders Group is we tell them Ed Tate's formula of watching it four different ways. Like, you first watch it with your back to it, so you're just listening. Then you watch it on mute, and you're watching for gestures. Then you watch it on fast forward for nervous tics, and then you watch it normal. And I did it like, I did it. The thing was, I completely surrendered to the idea that I don't know what the heck I'm doing, but these guys have done it, and so I'm going to do whatever they tell me to do. And it worked. Of course it worked. It's how you got to be where you were. And so that was the early part of my journey. And then pretty shortly after Toastmasters is when I became infatuated with how do I turn this into a real business? How do I get booked to speak in arenas full of people? How do we fill our own arenas full of people? How do you become a New York Times best selling author? And you know, the New York Times bestselling author journey was even more improbable and impossible than the world championship run. But again, it's how?

Well, before you go into that, I want to ask one more question. I want to go back a little bit regarding that process. Completely surrender to the work that it takes to be successful. There are those who will say, my gosh, Rory Vaden, you did all that work. 304 speeches, a thousand hours, 3,000 evaluations, and you come second, Right? People, well, they may say, oh, man, it wasn't really worth it then, was it? What do you say to those who have that perspective to give them a broader look at what the benefit really was long term?

Well, I mean, a trophy doesn't do that much for you in the grand scheme of things.

One more time, please say it again. Until we get it, please say it again.

I mean, a trophy doesn't do that much in the grand scheme of things. Being a New York Times bestselling author, I mean, it opens some doors, right? Like, it's not the instant life of fame and riches and that you think it is. I mean, you have a little level of celebrity inside of Toastmasters, for sure. I actually experienced quite a lot of that, even though I didn't win. But you got to ask yourself, too, why are you doing this, right? Like, I never was doing it to win a trophy. I was doing it because I felt called to make a difference in the world. And that is another thing, right? That is the purpose. Like, if the purpose that is pulling me towards this work is because I feel called, that I'm supposed to do something, that my life is supposed to matter, that. That I have a message that was placed inside of me, and I'm a conduit for that message to be delivered to the world. That is a fire that is never tempered. It's never extinguished, and it never dies. It burns brighter. And so I have to do the work. If I'm just chasing a trophy, then I get the trophy and it's over. If I'm chasing a title, I get the title and it's over. Now that we do personal brand strategy, which is really like, the monetization of things. That's the great irony of personal branding. Like, your personal brand is not about you. It's only about you. In the context of how you serve others, nobody cares about you because they're too busy caring about themselves. But as soon as my life is positioned in the context of how I help another individual, that is what gives my life purpose. That's what gives my life value. And that is the thing that is worth chasing. Because here's the other thing. The other thing that doesn't inspire that long is money. I'm certainly not the richest guy in the world, not by any means. But coming from a kid who grew up in a trailer park with a single mom to where my wife, AJ And I were business partners, this is our second business together. Like, where we are now is. It is a complete different universe, the world that we live in now. And the money doesn't motivate you that long. Now, I know some of you are like, I'd like to try me on it, you know, like, I'd like to. But there's a certain point where money wears off. It loses its motivation, or you. You become. You're. You're rich, but you're miserable. But what never wears off is leaning into that. That calling that you have to go, there's somebody out there in the world who needs what I have to share. And I don't know why, and I don't know exactly when or who. We believe that the calling that you feel on your heart to share a message is the result of a signal that's being sent out from someone else who needs you. And our job at Brand Builders Group is to help facilitate that connection, to pair up the messenger with the sender of the signal. They're calling for you. And as you lean into that, you realize, man, my Work is never done because it's not about money or a number of followers or a title or a trophy. It is about how does my life make a difference in this audience? And I'll tell you this, one of the things that I was so inspired by with you guys was, you know, sometimes people say, ah, you know, how much can you change a life in an hour? Well, if you're really good, you can change a life in an hour. Like, if you're funny enough to hold their attention and your stories are powerful enough and your points are sharp enough and you're messing message is clear enough and you're entertaining and you're. You're inspiring, you can completely change. But you have to be. You have to be so good. You. You. That is unforgettable, right as you're doing the work. And for me, I had to work so good because I had to break through the noise. Like, I have to be funny, not because I want to be funny or I want to be liked. It's because I need to have the weapon of humor in my artillery to break through their walls of distraction and resistance so that I can get through to that person. And that's why it's like, I need Darren to teach me exactly how to craft a punchline. I need Mark to teach me exactly how to move and make a facial expression or change my voice, because that is a tool to achieve my purpose. And to get through to that person is not to win a trophy. Wow.

You know, when you say that, what comes to my mind? What comes to my mind is a story you tell of being weary on the road, going door to door, and you meet Lupe in the little house, and you're telling her about, you know, you've been working so hard and it's my birthday, and the way you whine and just the way you crafted it, you know, I don't want to take away the story because do you still tell the story? I don't know if you do. I don't want to tell your story for you. But it's the way you say. Lupe looked at you in a moment of silence, and amidst all your whining, she said, no, a bling lays the way. You said that it was not random. I could tell you put the work in to create the nasal noire bling les and the look on your face. It was just wonderfully crafted. And it goes back to all the work you do. But what really struck me just now, Rory, I got to reiterate this. You said, I want to tell better stories. I want to be funny, not to be seen as a funny speaker, but to have a tool to break through whatever barrier they may have in front of them, to reach them with the message. Because they're calling you, saying, I need your message. And that's a powerful perspective I'd never heard before. To use the tools and skills that we acquire as a means of reaching them with the message they need to hear. That is powerful.

And, Rory, I don't know if you'd be. I know this isn't the point of the podcast, but it's such a powerful story. When I ever heard the story of you. Now, this is more of a training than a keynote, but of you going for the. Trying to get the speaker agent, like I.

For the book.

For the book.

Oh, the literary agent.

The literary. Sorry, the literary agent, not the speaker agent. Well, I ever heard that story. I was like, out of my mind. I'm like, he is the king. That is the inspirer. He leads by example. I tell everybody as much as I can remember of the story, but I was so blown away. Would you be willing to share just a little bit of that? I know we don't have time for the whole thing, but it personally impacted me. If you're willing to just share or a piece of it.

Oh, my gosh, I'll tell you. After the world championship, kind of the next thing that showed up on my radar was I was walking through the airport and I see this book that says New York Times best selling author. And I was like, wow, what? How do you become a New York Times best selling author? How do you get your book on the shelf in an airport? Right? And immediately it was the same kind of moment I had that first day that I saw Ed Tate and, like, the way that people responded to him. And I was like, gosh, this was amazing. And the thing to understand is that felt so impossible for me. Like, that was the most impossible thing. Like, I might as well have said I was going to be LeBron James, like, in that moment. It couldn't have been more unrealistic to me. But, you know, I started asking the question, okay, well, how does it happen? Like, what does it take? Right? And you start exploring this journey. Like, it may not be probable, it may not even be possible, but. But how could it be possible? Clearly, someone's done it. Like, and so I go to the bookstore and I grab all these. These. These books off the shelf. They all said New York Times bestseller. And I'm flipping through and I notice in the acknowledgment section. They. They. They recognize the same literary agent over and over. And I was like, oh, like, this woman. Like, all of these authors have this one woman in common. And so I'm like, I need to meet this woman. And so I go to her website, and it says in big, bold letters, not accepting author submissions. Please do not contact us unless, you know, referral only. You know, I'm like, well, I need to get a book proposal so I can send it to this woman. And so I buy a book on how to write book proposals, and I create a book proposal, and I send it, and there's no response. I email, no response. I phone call, no response. I fax message. At one point, I send a fax message, and there's. There's no response. And this goes on for, like, six months. It wasn't like a get lost. It wasn't we hate you. It was just no response. Yeah, just Cricket, here comes. And so I eventually realized I'm like, the only way I'm ever gonna have a chance to meet this woman is I have to find a way to get in the same physical location as her. I didn't know anybody that knew her, and so I just looked up their address, and I was in. I was in Charlotte at the time, North Carolina, and she was in Dallas, Texas. That was her office. And so I bought a plane ticket to Dallas. I quickly realized that there was no way they were just going to let me in to talk to her because they weren't, you know, responding. But I thought, well, maybe if I could get to their office early in the morning, I could catch her as she's trying to walk into the door. And so I got. I booked a flight, and I got there at 4am I was sitting in the hallway with my book proposal, and I just sat on the floor and just waited. And the day I was there, she was out of town, freaking, out of story, out of out of town. True story. But there was this young woman named Nina who walked up and. Anyways, Nina was like a junior agent at the time, and I told her what I was doing. And, you know, it went on and on and on and about. It took about two and a half years from that moment, they finally signed us. And then within six weeks, we had 11 publishers review the book proposal. We got into a bidding war, and then we sold it. And then we suddenly had something we had never had before, which was money. And so we had money that we then dumped more than 100% of the money into marketing the book. And we were able to leverage off that to hit number one Wall Street Journal and number two, New York Times.

That's awesome.

You know, also, Darren, real quickly, even the process of becoming a best selling author, from what I understand, you had to go through several gyrations and I don't want to say, you know, but you had to find, you had to find out what does it take to actually get that level of readership to qualify to be a bestselling author. I know you haven't got time for that. So hopefully those who are curious will want to find out more about Rory Vaden and that story. They'll check you out and go to your website and maybe you have a story there on a video. But I remember you told a story of Toastmasters one year and it was just a process not only of meeting the publisher and the agent rather, but to also to get the number of purchases and to get people involved. You are, you are the epitome of persistence, of being a workhorse, of having no excuses. You are the epitome of doing what it takes to fulfill your dream, not just dreaming. And that's really powerful. Darren, go ahead.

I just want to like make sure everyone caught that he got on a plane to sit in the hallway to try and walk in at the same time with his proposal. Like, you gotta hear the whole, like this is awesome. You gotta hear the short version of.

The Reader's digest condensed Cliff notes version.

And she was out of town and.

He didn't give up.

That's amazing. So Rory, you and your company brand builders, you guys help consultants, authors. Who is it that you help build their brands?

We call them mission driven messengers. So we help mission driven messengers to build and monetize their personal brand. Right. So we're really focused on the business components, not just for speakers. Every one of our clients speaks, but most of them are not speaking for a fee. Most of them are speaking as a lead generation mechanism to sell something else, whether it is a book or a course or a coaching program or. Or we also work a lot with professional service providers too. And so it's like they're a CPA or a lawyer or a doctor and they're trying to sell their service. But so we help them kind of craft their intellectual property. Most of all, we help them find their uniqueness so that they can separate themselves from everyone else. And then we help them build an ecosystem around. They turn their personal brand into this digital automated ecosystem. Basically your own media company where you're constantly, you have you. You're a machine that is pumping your content out into the universe as fast as possible and then driving warm leads back into your business. Whatever the business is, there's, there's a bunch of ways to monetize it. Yeah. So that's what we're do. I mean, functionally, it's coaches, consultants, speakers, authors, trainers. Like expert preneurs, I would say. Is our core target audience. A level out from that would be like professional service providers, you know, some direct salespeople, anybody whose face is attached to their business. We work exclusively with faces. We don't do branding for companies. And branding is kind of an interesting, weird word because when people hear the word branding, they often think of like logos and colors and fonts. And we don't actually don't do any of that. Like, we don't, we don't do website design or any of those things. We do personal brand strategies. So we help you find your uniqueness, we help you figure out your positioning in the marketplace, how to differentiate yourself from all the other people who do something similar to you, and then create original thought, leadership, intellectual property, whether it's a book or a course, but your own methodology. And then how do you monetize that and build the ecosystem around it and then turn it into a business? Which is one of the things that we've done that's pretty rare. Even most, most speakers, even like very, very successful speakers, hall of fame speakers, et cetera. Most of them are a pretty small business. Like, they're a small business, most of them. They have like, you know, a couple couple office assistants. And the first company that we started back in 2006, we grew. We had about 200 people. When we, we sold it, we sold our equity in the business. We exited. And then, you know, brand builders, we've got now about 40 people and 400 active clients. But we're. So what we're really doing is we're helping people try to understand, like, if they're a messenger, we're trying to get them clear on who their message is for and what their mission is and how to, how to monetize it. But it's, it's really about that, that purpose thing. And to what you guys were both saying about the hard work. The way I think of it, I've never thought of it so much of like, okay, I mean, not so much. Maybe when I was younger, it was like, oh, I'm going to work really, really hard so that I can like, have anything. But the more that time has gone on, the less it's like, ooh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna like, put in the work so I can get my dream. It's not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's. It's more of like if. If you were walking down the side of the road and There was a 4 year old getting attacked by a dog 30ft ahead of you, you would run to help the kid, right? You're not doing it for recognition, you're not doing it for a prize. You're doing it because it's the right thing to do and you feel called in that direction. And one of the things, the hardest thing in this space is separating yourself from all the noise that's out there. It is going, why would somebody hire you when there are literally hundreds of thousands of other speakers or coaches or consultants or real estate agents or mortgage. Like, why would they hire you? And you know, so we have this whole process that helps people find their uniqueness. And part of this is when we help you get clear on who you're supposed to serve. And you throw yourself into serving them. You. You become relentless, you become, you become unstoppable. You become unforgettable. Like, you're, you're serving, you're so focused on finding that person because you're going to. Somebody's out there who needs me. The other way of thinking, I was like, you go, well, it's a lot of marketing. Well, yeah, it is a lot of marketing, but it's also like, if you had the cure for cancer, it would be your duty, it would be your obligation to tell the world that you had it, that you found it, right? And the truth is that all of us have, all of us have solved a problem. We always tell our clients, if there is one shortcut, I mean, we have this whole process that we take people through, but if there is one shortcut to finding your uniqueness, we have realized that you're always most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. Most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. Once you get clear on that, then you realize you have a duty, you have a responsibility, you have an obligation, a calling, a mission, a purpose, a cause to go help that person. And that mission far greater exceeds the money, that purpose exceeds the profit, right? Like that. That calling is far in excess of the cost that it takes to get it. And so we have figured out that the sooner we can help people get clear on who they are meant to serve, everything else falls in line. And we even approach this, we approach this the wrong way. Like, even people wake up and they go, what is my purpose? What is my purpose? Well, even asking that which isn't, I don't think it's a wrong question or a bad question, but it is a self centered question. What is my purpose? I think the way that you'll find what you're looking for, like what we're really finding, we're searching for, is significance, fulfillment, meaning satisfaction, joy. You'll find that faster. And by not asking, what is my purpose? You'll find it faster by asking, who can I help? Who can I serve, who can I assist, who can I support? Who is going through something that I've been through and when you've been through it and. Right. And this is why Brand Builders Group is blowing up. I mean, we're growing way faster than we did at our former company. And it's because if somebody is out there who is a mission driven messenger and they really feel like they have a calling on their life, like if they really feel like I am called to serve somebody, we know what that desperate feeling feels like as much as anybody. And we know what it's like to run hard after it and to go the wrong way and to make a million mistakes. And we've learned from so many great mentors, the two of you included. And we paved a path where there wasn't one. We paved the path that we wish we had. And so now we're able to look back and go, go back and get people and come, come with me. If you feel called in this direction, come with me because there is a path. Just like what you guys are doing with teaching people to have unforgettable presentations. Like you guys are taking people on the journey that you spent your life.

Walking down and Rory helping speakers. Because if they want to be unforgettable presenters, chances are they need a business and they need a brand. And I think a lot of people miss that. But with your students and the people you're helping, what are a couple of the mistakes that you see in trying to build a brand?

The number one mistake is they start marketing before they have clarity on their uniqueness. I'll tell you the single best piece of personal branding advice I've ever received. This is not a Rory Vaden quote. I wish it was, but it comes from Larry Wingate, who's an NSA hall of Famer. And I took a class from him one time. He didn't. This wasn't. He didn't make his living doing this. Like we do but he was a big catalyst and inspiration for us to start Brand Builders Group. Because here's what he said, and the first time I heard it, I was like, that is it. Like, this is so brilliant. This is it. And here's what he said. He said, the goal is to find your uniqueness and then exploit it in the service of others. Find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others. And as soon as I heard that, I was like, that's it. Like that's, that's, you know, mic drop. Like that's how you separate yourself from everyone else, is you figure out what is the thing that you were put on this planet to do that nobody else can do. And the thing is, Larry didn't have a process to help you do it. He just said, that's what you need to do. Like, like so many great legends of our space, they did it for themselves intuitively, but they didn't have like a process. And so we, you know, when we started Brand Builders Group, we had a chance to redefine ourselves and we, we had to start a new business that was completely different from the one we were in before. And so it was like, well, this is something we think we can do a good job of. And so we developed this six part process to help people find their uniqueness. Because until you're clear on that, you're just spinning your wheels. You're just trying a bunch of random tactics on a bunch of random sites with a bunch of random messages and none of it lands and none of it sounds unique because it's not unique. You are part of the noise. You're doing and saying all the same things that everyone else is saying. And what's ironic is we're looking at the world around us going, we're modeling after what everyone else is doing. But really the truth is more of leaning into who you are and what journey have you walked on in a visual? So there's a visual that represents this. So we call it Sheehan's Wall because we named this after Peter Sheehan, who is also another NSA hall of Famer. And Peter was originally the one that we learned this concept for. We actually just had him on our podcast last week because we had so many people contacting him, saying, what is Sheehan's wall? Did you come up with Sheehan's Wall? And he's like, I don't know what you're talking about. And we named it after him because it was his, it was like the origin was his concept. The way it works is that in any industry, there's two groups of people. There are those who are unknown and then there are those who are known, right? So there's people who are dealing with obscurity, and then, then there are people with notoriety. And what everyone's trying to do is move from one side to the other. But what we don't realize is that there's this giant invisible wall that we call she hands wall. And what most of us do is we try to move to become known, is we, we look at what everyone else is doing and we go, oh, I want to kind of emulate what they're doing. Or we go, I have a lot of topics. So I talk about all these different topics and I talk to all these different audiences and I have all these different messages and I have all these different social media platforms and all these different products that I'm selling. And what they don't realize is that when you do that, you're bouncing off the wall. Because when you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. When you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. The key to breaking through Sheehan's wall is exactly what Larry Wingate said it is to find your uniqueness, to find the one thing that you can do better than anyone else in the world or different than anyone else in the world. And you break through the wall by becoming known for that one thing. You have enough velocity and force and momentum that comes into the wall in this focused area that you break through the wall. And then once you're on the other side of that wall, you can expand into other things. But until you have that focus, you're just bouncing off the wall. And so brilliant. We help people get clear on what that is, and then we teach them the mechanics of building the velocity, like the audience and the speed and the business doing launches where you actually sort of like break through the wall and.

Rory, I know we're getting short on time. Thank you for joining us, Mark. As you put together the keepers, Mark's going to recap some of the pearls of wisdom you dropped. How would people reach out to you, Rory? Or find out more about your, your brand builders program.

Here's what I would say. Go to. If you go to free call.roryvaden.com just go to free call.roryVaden.com if you feel like you are maybe one of these mission driven messengers, you feel like you're called to like, make a business out of this message, you can request a free call with our team. So there's a Little bit of information there. You can request a call. We will have you talk with one of our strategists and the first call is totally free. Even if we can't help you, like long term, you'll learn a ton. We'll show you our whole process. Like, we'll walk you through our entire. We give it away. Like, here's the formula. And then if we can help you, we have all different tiers of people. We have billionaires and people on TV and magazine covers and New York Times bestselling authors that we work with all the way to people who are like, I'm a single mom, I have an office job and I think I might maybe have a calling to do this in all different budget levels and stuff. And so we try to have something available for everybody if they feel like they are a mission driven messenger, if they feel like they might be being called to, you know, share that message, which I would guess that most of the people here are, because if you're doing a presentation and you're trying to be unforgettable and you're, you're learning from these two masters here, it's, it's probably because there's something that makes you feel like, hey, this is it. And I would say we're not the people who would teach you necessarily to be like the master of, of the art of speaking. It's more the business of speaking and the marketing components of it.

Sweet Mark Brown. What do we got for keepers?

Oh, man. Hold on to your seats, friends.

Wow.

Oldie but goodie. I gotta repeat this one. When it comes to doing what's impossible or unforgettable, don't ask, can I? Or should I? But ask how can I? How should I? We must completely surrender to the work it takes to achieve success. Ask yourself, why do I speak? And think of yourself as a conduit of a message that the world needs to hear. Once you find that your fire should never be extinguished, lean into your calling. And when you do that, that never wears off. Your calling is the result of a signal sent by someone who needs you and your message. And if you are really good, you can change a life in one hour. Use your techniques, your tools, your stories and your humor as weapons in your artillery to break through any barrier to your audience. From Larry Wingate. Find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others. Got a couple more. You are most powerly position, powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. And you find your purpose faster by asking, who can I serve? Who Can I help? And who can I support? And remember, going back to the idea of Rory, I'm going to call you the portrait of persistence, okay? If you dilute your focus, you will dilute your results. So put the work in for a purpose. Aaron, over to you, my friend.

When I hear 1100 hours of film, I can't get that out of my head. All I can think of is Rory Vaden. You are the Tom Brady of brand building and speaking. Thank you for being here. I know you gotta go. It's been a privilege, seriously, and we could not be more happy for your success. If you're listening to this and you want to be unforgettable, you really need a brand. Check out Rory's info there. Have a call. Do a call with his company, one of his consultants, please, because you're going to get some breakthroughs on that free call. And if you're serious, and if they can help you and you see the vision, please let Rory's team help you. Rory.

Well, yeah. Thank you so much, guys. Yeah, so that URL freecall.roryvaden.com I guess the last thing I just would leave y' all with is typically when people start out speaking, the number one thing they talk about is fear, right? Is like this, this fear of getting on stage and this, this fear of being out there. And one of the things that we have realized is that there is no fear when the mission to serve is clear. There's only fear. When you're thinking about yourself, are they going to like me? Am I going to forget something? Do I remember my first line? Do I look funny? Like there's. It's all fear is so self centered. But if you're thinking about serving them, all that fear goes away. It's kind of like if there's a car accident, right? And there's a, you know, somebody inside a trapped in a car, you run over there to help them. You're not thinking about, how does your hair look? Right? You're not going, did I brush my teeth? Like, you're going to. You're going to help them. You're going to save a life, right? And, and that's the space that you have to live in. And I want you to know that if you feel that calling right now, it is because there is somebody out there who is sending that signal. Like there literally could be somebody out there begging and pleading and potentially literally on their hands and knees right now, praying for answers to questions that, you know, like the back of your hand, praying for solutions to problems that you've already solved, looking for a path that you've already walked down. And they're desperate for you. And all of the pain that you went through was preparing you and preparing a way for you to serve that person. And if you focus on them, all the fear goes away and you just serve and your life will be transformed forever. Like the connection of your life changes. You'll be amazing on stage, you'll make more money than you ever thought was possible. But beyond all that, like your life will have, your life will have meaning. So think about that person and just remember there is no fear when the mission to service is truly clear.

Nice. Rory Vaden. Thank you. If you're listening to this, join us next week. We love what you do, Rory, and how you do it. Congratulations again.

Thanks brothers.

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