How to Become Wealthy & Well-known The Easy Way

It wasn't until that moment that stuff started like really flowing for me is when I actually finally said yes, I, I actually do want to serve people. I actually do want to help.

Because you've already been embezzled front. You already built a nine figure company, you already were homeless, you've already been through stuff in your personal life.

What I call it, it's like a personal brand growth curve. Honestly, it's almost like you move from ego into your authenticity.

In the short term, it may feel like you're losing because I feel like.

That'S, you know, that's, that's part of breaking through the wall in many respects is being authentic.

You're not trying to go viral for a moment. You're not trying to be famous for 15 minutes. You're trying to make a lasting impact in the world. You're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. And I believe that that is God's divine design of your identity. But you always get paid for how hard you work. Sometimes it's now, usually it's not, oftentimes it's later, but always eventually.

Hey guys, welcome back to the show. As you know, we always set ourselves apart by bringing you amazing guests. World class thought leaders that do world class things, but more importantly, help others do world class things. Our special guest today is none other than Rory Vaden, New York Times bestselling author, world class speaker. He is co founder of the Brand Builders Group and a entity that I personally partnered with myself over the number of years to make sure that I'm trying to do my impact and also become one of his mission driven messengers. Rory Vaden. Dude, welcome back to Build man. So good to see you.

It's good, good to be with you in person.

Yes.

I don't think we've ever done an in person podcast interview.

No, this is the first. No, I'm digging it, I'm digging it. That's good. So hey look, I'm jump straight in. We got. You're a very busy man nowadays. You got a lot of attention. You're doing a lot of book launches, you're doing a lot of personal branding. You are the thank you mastro as, as far as I'm concerned. Thank you. I legitimately don't know anybody else better in the business than you guys.

Thank you.

Seriously, Brand Builders Group has been a huge asset to me in my journey and I know I've been a huge asset to so many other personal brands, book launches and everything else. I mean there's some of the Best known books in the marketplace right now have come through your doors. Thank you.

Yeah, I mean, we're, you know, we're serving Mission Driven Messengers, and, and the only thing we're doing is try to help. You know, in our case, it's, it's, it's. It's like a ministry. We feel God saying, hey, help my people be heard.

Yeah.

And help the good guys win.

Yeah.

And not just have a world where the best marketer wins rather than the best idea wins or the more the most service centered person. So we're really just dedicated to trying to help people who genuinely want to help the world.

Yeah.

And it's working. It's working right now.

Yeah.

We got a good thing going.

Yeah. No, it's not just working. It's scaling, which I absolutely love as somebody who's been, you know, part of the picture now for several years. Got to watch almost the. Almost the inception. Right. Of Brand Builders Group. And to see you guys doing such amazing work in the marketplace, it's amazing. You know, it's funny you mentioned the mission driven messengers, helping them be heard. Yes. Right. And you and I did a podcast was a couple years ago, and I was like. I think on the podcast, I literally, like, stunned. I'm like, oh, man.

What?

So because you asked me a question, I was like, well, I think I've been trying to figure out if I'm worthy of a voice. And I think a lot of personal brands or aspiring personal brands, people that maybe have a lot of wisdom and knowledge that maybe haven't hit the marketplace place yet, probably struggle with that. I want to start there, and then I want to jump into monetization. But what are your thoughts there?

Yeah. I mean, what makes every person worthy of a voice is all the people that they can help. We're not in this for a game of vanity, but we're very much committed to this game for the betterment of humanity. And the people that we work with are the people who realize.

My message matters not for me, but my message matters for the people that I'm trying to reach. And I think some people, frankly, hide behind humility and what their. Their humility is really just fear masquerading as humility.

Yeah.

They're afraid that they won't succeed. They're afraid people will think they're stupid. They're. They're afraid that people will say, you're a copycat or someone else. Who do you think you are? And. And you only feel fear when you're thinking about yourself.

Ooh.

There is, There is no fear when the mission to serve is clear.

Yeah.

That's one of our big BBG mantras. Like, I mean, if you, if you. And this, this is like all types of fear, right? Like, if you go.

When you. Let's say you're driving down the street and there's a car that's turned over, right. And you hear somebody yelling, you run over. You're not, you're not thinking about, how does my hair look? Like, is my outfit cute? Like, does my breath stink? Like, you're. You're not worried about it because you're going to help somebody.

Yeah.

All of us, we. The way we like to say it is, we say your highest value is when you're being your highest value to others. And there's a magical part of that, that when your skills and talents are being used to help somebody else.

Yeah.

And you perform in a way that we believe is divine. We believe this is part of your divine identity, that this is the design of your life. That every problem you've gone through, every heartbreak, every setback, every struggle, every challenge really didn't have anything to do with you. It had everything to do with making you into the person you needed to be so that one day you could reach back and help somebody else. And, you know, of course, the flagship. I think I showed you this. So, you know, the. One of our flagship mantras, we printed it on the covers like a little Easter egg. You are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. And so.

And all the variations of that person.

Totally. Yeah, totally. And, and, and I think when people hear personal branding, you know, sometimes they equate it to like, oh, ego, arrogance, celebrity, like self centeredness. That's not it at all. I mean that. That's not how we do it. Like, to us, your personal brand is not about you. It is 100% about the person that you're here to serve. And.

The reason that you're worthy is not because you're worthy, it's because someone else is worthy.

Yes.

And because that person is worthy, it makes your message really important, and that makes you important. And I think that's this great irony is that.

Our lives have meaning in the context of other people. And I think one of the great travesties of the world today is like, so many people are depressed because it's like, I'm seeking happiness. I'm seeking happiness. How do I get happy? Like, what do I have to do to get happy? Like, what kind of routine? What thing? What do I Drink, what do I eat, what, what do I wear, what do I buy? That makes me happy. And that pursuit leads to depression because it's completely self centered.

Kind of our philosophy on this is like, don't pursue happiness, pursue service. And happiness shows up as a byproduct. Like you pursue service and purpose shows up as a byproduct. Because when I'm helping somebody, there's nothing like the feeling you get when you help.

Absolutely.

And you, and you realize and you, you get to experience this visceral taste of wow. My life matters not because I'm important, but because I did something to help somebody. And that's what personal branding should be about. Yeah, I don't think that's what the early wave of social media has been. Yeah, but it is. The, the people who are winning and making real money and making a lasting impact are not just people who are going viral once or writing the algorithm for a few months. It's mission driven messengers who are dialed in that, that their worth is, can, is, is inherent because of their desire to serve.

Dude, I'm really glad you said all that and I'll tell you why. Because I, I have, personally, I have a love hate relationship with the marketplace. And if you're going to step into a role of influence, doesn't mean it's like you mean influencer or a thought leader or personal brand. Like, it's like if you're, if you have a voice that's influential to other people. Right. To me, there's a responsibility with that. And at least for me, part of the difficulties that I faced in trying to break through the noise was, I call it the degradation of trust. You know, you, you kind of alluded to it, the early wave. It's like, you know, they built audiences and things of that nature and then maybe didn't really have the heart of service, maybe didn't really do it authentically, maybe hurt some people along the way, whether intentional or accidental, maybe in that selfish capacity. And as a result, you had this wave of the guru versus now what I'm seeing the economy shift to, which is the guide. Right. And these guides are not self centered. These guys are selfless in that they want to train and help. What would you say to the marketplace that has, you know, at least in today's times, there's been a little bit of, you know, trust lost with a lot of various levels of thought leadership and things of that nature. And you know, and I think people do want to hear from people that have had this, you know, a Similar experience early on, you know, serving the person used to be and things of that nature. How do we rebuild trust as a personal brand? As it, because you know, a lot of our listeners are aspiring entrepreneurs or early stage entrepreneurs, mid stage. Like they haven't quite broken through the seven figure ceiling. You and I both know you guys did an amazing study not that long ago that kind of proves the point of how powerful personal branding is. But they're also like, well, I don't want to be like that guy or that woman or that person or I'm just curious, how do we handle the trust?

Well, the first thing that I would say is, you know, when people hear about brand Builders group and personal branding, they immediately think like online marketing or social media or podcast. Because we work with a lot of the biggest podcasters in the world and we work with a lot of the most well known speakers in the world and things like that. But what we have to tell people is don't think of personal branding as online. Really. We define personal branding as the digitization of reputation. All this is, is an old, this isn't a new concept, it's an old concept. It's really reputation. And reputation is about trust. And I would say just like. So yes, I think there's been a lot of people who've been taken advantage of and burned by people online who just want to get their hands in their pockets. But that happens every day offline too.

That's true.

Happens every day and in every industry. Every industry, every geography. And what, what I would say is you can take advantage of people once, maybe twice. But if you have any type of vision for a sustainable business or brand or money making machine, you can't, you can't continue, you can't, you can't scale garbage. Yeah, right. Like you could take advantage of somebody once, but they're not going to refer their friends, they're not going to come back again and repeat business and referrals and recommendations and endorsements is, is all of business. And that hasn't changed, it's just multiplied, it's exponential now because we live in such an online world.

So what I would say is it's the same as it's always been. Right. Like the guy who has a plumbing business, there's some other plumber out there taking advantage of people and double charging and not fixing, doing a good job and all this sort of stuff. Well, at first it may look like he's winning, but over the course of time, all that business eventually migrates to you.

Yeah.

And so I think my encouragement would be think longer term, but my encouragement is go. You got to remind yourself that this, that if you're a mission driven messenger, you're not trying to go viral for a moment. You're not trying to be famous for 15 minutes. You're trying to make a lasting impact in the world. And that takes time. And if you do it right, it will last a long time. Not. We're not the people, you can't. We're not the people who look for hacks. Right. We're not looking for tricks and gimmicks and oh, how do I, like, find a trending audio or like a secret hashtag? Like, that's not what it's about. It's about reputation. It's about trust. And if you play that game, sooner or later you win. Now the other thing I would say to people that is important about this is in the short term, it may feel like you're losing, but. But you always get paid for how hard you work. Sometimes it's now, but usually it's not. Oftentimes it's later, but always eventually. And that's the secret that most entrepreneurs lose sight of. Because honestly, some people get drawn into entrepreneurship with the lure of like, riches and private jets and like, you know, big balling and fancy watches and like, and that's why they're like, oh, I'm going to come in with that. And, you know, there's a lot of power to being driven by ambition. There was a big part of my life where I was driven by ambition. I've been driven by competition for parts of my life. There's some healthy parts of those that really push you, but eventually they kind of like fizzle out. Yeah, the part that never fizzles out is mission. If you can be driven by mission, if you can be driven by service, then you're never done. But yet you always feel satisfied and fulfilled and you just got to be willing to play that, that long game. And I think that's, you know, the same as it's been in any generation is people are always falling victim to short term impulses, but the people who are breaking through the wall are consistently building trust, adding value for the long term.

Yeah. So good. That's so good. You know, I was also thinking too. So I was very fortunate to get advanced copy of Wealthy and well Known. Bro, that book is meaty. Oh my gosh. You fit so much into those pages. You and AJ Did a phenomenal job.

Thank you.

It was funny as I was reading.

It, very tactic there's an emotional.

Yeah. But then it's, it's again, it's tactical. It's one of the best books I've seen hit the market in a long time. I'm not, and I'm not just blowing smoke. Like, I've had the privilege and honor of being a client, working alongside of you guys on specific projects and really watching you actually truly walk out. What you write out, you really, you guys really do as an organization. And I'll give you one of the things that you guys really helped me with, because I think a lot of personal brands really face this.

So before you do that. Yeah. Should we give the book away to everybody?

Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it.

Okay. So, so this something that we're doing with our friends is we're, we're, we're giving away the audiobook completely for free. So we, the book is obviously available or depending on when you watch this, it's about to come out, but we're giving away the audiobook for free. If you go to freebrandaudiobook.com build. So freebrandaudiobook.com build because you're a friend of Steven's and Steven is a friend of ours. You were literally get the whole book for free on audio. You get it right away. No catches. No catch. Nothing to it.

Guys, I told you, these people are amazing. I keep telling you guys, man. Dude, thank you so much for that. Yeah, I'm sure everybody's gonna love that, man.

I hope so.

Again, I, I'm still gonna highly recommend they grab a couple copies for themselves and their friends, because I found myself with a highlighter and ink pen and, and while the audiobook is amazing and I absolutely love it, I, I, I, I'm gonna highly suggest they grab a couple extra copies for that reason.

But you like the physical.

I like both, man. I'll listen to the audiobooks on the airplane or on a jog or on a walk. And. Yeah, but I have, you know, but that's good. And then I'm like, oh, now. Now that I'm listening to it in my head, I'm like, oh, I want to highlight that. I'm like, I can't highlight my. What I'm hearing. So. Yeah, so it's, it's a, it's a best of both worlds from my perspective.

Sometimes I, I mostly listen, and then sometimes I'll buy it just to put it on the shelf like a, like a trophy, like, I conquered that book.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

I haven't thought about that, maybe I should try that too. But yeah, you know, one of the things that it's going to help, I think a lot of folks do, is one of the things that you guys have taught me over the number of years is the importance of being authentic. And you know, I really struggled for a long time to really have a clear message and it wasn't for me. It was more along the lines of there's so many experiences that I've had. Right. I have a very robust background of challenges and adversities. A lot in business, a lot in life, a lot in relationships, a lot of different varieties. It's like, okay, I have all this experience. I think God has given me enough, quite a bit of wisdom with a lot of these experience because I look for the lessons, what do I talk about, how do I shape that, how do I, how do I lean in? And you know, and it was really, really difficult until I really started working with you guys. And you guys helped me clarify really what that message is by a filtering process. And you know, I think that a lot of people, and this is me talking. Right. I think a lot of mission driven messengers that haven't stepped up to the plate yet aren't doing so out of fear of wanting to serve, but fear of not knowing what to say.

Sure.

So kind of let's walk through that a little bit.

Yeah, for sure. Well, you know, our, our full curriculum, we have like 12 different two day experiences. Right. Our flagship two day experience is the first one. It's called finding your brain DNA, which you, you've been through. A lot of the content in this book is from that. So this is kind of like the self guided version for 20 bucks.

Yeah.

But we work with people, you know, one on one. And if you came through that experience, there's four things we got to get people clear on. And it's kind of like four one things. So the first is you got to be clear on what problem you solve in one word. And that's like the genesis. And most people cannot, they can't even answer that question. What problem can I solve for the world in one word?

Yeah.

The next thing is who do I solve that problem for in one phrase? Then how do I solve that problem in one sentence, which is what we call your message.

Yep.

And then what? One single revenue stream matters above all others. And if you get clear on those four one things, we call that your uniqueness. And, and it's really important to narrow it because of a concept that we call she hands wall yeah. Right. So I named this after a colleague of ours, Peter Sheehan, who's really, really brilliant, mostly in the corporate world. I. I originally heard the concept from him, and then we adapted it to personal brands because it was so good. And. And then we named it after Peter. But, you know, in any. In any vertical, in any industry, there's two groups of people. There are those who are unknown. Right. So they're. They're living in obscurity.

Yep.

And then there are those who are. Are well known.

Yep.

They have notoriety, they're recognizable. Right. That's where the well known of this comes from, is we're helping people move from unknown to well known. Well, what most of us do that are unknown is we look at the people are well known, and we go, oh, I'm going to do what they do. And so we look at Gary Vaynerchuk and he talks about lots of topics, right. And he talks about entrepreneurship and sports and music and entertainment and wine and web3 and social media and cryptocurrency, AI and all this stuff, right. And you're like, oh, I'm multi passionate. I want to talk about a lot of topics.

Multi passionate.

I'm multi passion.

I was multi passionate.

Yeah, yeah. And that's what we're like, oh, I'm multi passionate. So I'll talk about a lot of topics. And then, and then, you know, Gary and everyone else is saying, well, you got to be on. You got to be multi platform. You need to be on. You need a podcast, you need YouTube, you need Twitter X and you need Facebook meta and Instagram and Snapchat and Pinterest and YouTube, like, all the places. And like, okay, all right. So I'd be at all the places. And then it's a challenge because you're like, who do I talk to? It's like, well, there's so many people following me that are from different areas. Like, my grandma follows me and my kids, my kids best friend's parents and my people from church and like my employees and my customers. But then I'm also like, have this hobby, like, on the side. And. And then we're trying to monetize in too many different ways because we see the Rock, right? And we go, well, the Rock owns a sports team and he owns an energy drink, Tequila. And he owns Tequila. And he owns, he owns men's facial products and clothing line and he's a comedian, he's an actor. And I've heard multiple streams of income is how you get rich. So I want multiple streams of income. And so what happens is we're talking to too many audiences on too many platforms about too many topics, trying to monetize in too many different ways. And what happens is you bounce off the wall.

That's the noise of the confusion. Hey there. I hope you're enjoying the show. Look, I wanted to jump in here just for a quick minute. One of the things that I've discovered while trying to build a digitally based business is the importance of making sure all the platform are cohesively tied together. I can't tell you how many times we've had broken systems cost me a lot of money, a lot of frustration, and more importantly, caused my clients and my customers a lot of frustration. Now, when you set out to build a. Build a digitally based business, so many times you need a funnel page and an automation page and an evergreen webinar and a place to host your courses and so on and so forth. And as you can might imagine that every single time you stack one of those things on top of each other, what happens is you create an episode of where something could actually break. And again, it always tends to break when you need it not to break the most, which is when I decided to partner with Kartra. I've been utilizing Kartra now for the better part of a year. They were super simple to set up. They helped me include all of the different types of platforms I was using, helped me save over 85% in doing so, and make sure I have a completely cohesive system to make sure every single client journey, every single client touchpoint and everything along the way allows me to scale a company over time based on a platform I can actually trust. So if you don't want to waste any more money and time and energy with frustrating things of trying to figure out how this works and that works and that works, then give my good friends at Kartra a try. You can find me@kartra.com backslash unstoppable, where you can actually do a test drive of your own on our behalf. And hopefully you enjoy the platform as much as we have allowed you to stop the frustration, save the money, and more importantly, build a scalable empire that you and your family can rely on. And that way you can can go out and change the marketplace too. All right, take care. See you back in the show.

The reason you bounce off the wall is because if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results, period. Yeah, right. And, and that came from my. That's a quote from my first book, Take the Stairs, which came out years ago. Right. It's been true. Still true. Right. Is, is.

The.

And if you think of the metaphor of the wall. Right. Like, okay, if, if I'm hitting a wall, if I'm swinging a sweat sledgehammer and I'm hitting all these different spots on the wal happens to that wall. But if I pick a spot on the wall and I hit the same spot over and over and over again and again and again, eventually that paint is going to chip and then it's going to crack.

Yeah.

And then there's going to be a divot and then I'm going to. I'm going to punch through. There's going to be a little tiny hole and then I'm going to punch through. And when I punch through and pull back, the entire wall comes crashing down. And that's how you become wealthy and well known.

Yeah.

Because nobody who got rich got rich from multiple streams of income. It's the stupidest piece of advice on the Internet.

That's very true. I didn't. Yeah.

Everybody, you're a great example. Everybody who got rich got rich from one amazing stream of income. They had one thing they did really well, right. Like, you know, Messi is a soccer player. Wolfgang Puck is a chef. The Rock in the beginning was just a wrestler. Like in, in the beginning, like, Sarah Blakely had Spanx. Richard Branson had, like Virgin Records. You had, you know, Elon Musk does a lot today. In the beginning, PayPal.

Yeah.

Like, there was one thing. Jeff Bezos, Amazon. Like, there's not an example. Like there's, there's like zero examples of people who got rich from multiple streams of income. And there's like zero examples of people who got famous for multiple things. The way you get wealthy and well known is you have one amazing stream of income and you become well known on one single topic. Right. If you go. Brene Brown became one of the most influential people in the world. All she did for decades was study a one word problem. Shame. And you can't talk about shame without someone bringing up Brene Brown's name. She owns the topic. Dave Ramsey owns the topic of debt. He has built a multi nine figure business in annual revenue, a thousand employees, one billion podcast downloads, like 17 million people listening to him on the radio. And yet he's been saying the same thing every day for three hours, the same seven baby steps for 30 years, over and over and over. Right. You break through the wall by being the world's leading authority on one thing.

Yeah.

And so the discipline Is in, is in finding your uniqueness. As Larry Wingate told me early in my career, the goal is to find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others.

Yeah.

So what we did was we created a process that curates a multi passionate person through a series of exercises and introspective questions and reflection to where the answer emerges. Right. Like, I can't just like look at someone go, oh, your uniqueness is blank. But you go through this process and the process, it's revealed. Right. And so, you know, that's the process we, we, we teach in the book for, you know, a few bucks and then, you know, for more money, we can guide somebody through it if they're really struggling.

Yeah. You know, I'm so glad you, you, you really unpacked that because I, again, I think there's a tremendous amount of confusion because of all the things that you say. Right. If I'm, if I'm new to the end and I was at one time I was very new to the industry and I wanted to serve people and I think a part of me had to die to self a little bit of, you know, a little bit of all right, what do you, why do you really want to do this? Do you really want to do this for the service of others or are you just saying that and not really meaning it? Which is authenticity.

It's honest, bro.

And I find that I'm not the only one that's faced that.

All of us face that, you know, and every day.

Yeah. Well, and I think that's the, I think that's part of the important part of the conversation. Like yes, Brand Builders Group is, is the very best at what you guys do, hands down. I don't know anybody like you guys. From personal branding to books to book launches, there's nobody better that I'm aware of. I haven't, I haven't been introduced to him yet. And I've been in a lot of rooms thanks to doing what you guys have taught me to do well.

And we, we created the thing that we wished we had. Right. We're serving the person we once were. Before I was the youngest hall of fame speaker in US history. Before I was a 29 year old best New York Times bestselling author, before I had a TED Talk go viral, before we had millions of downloads, I was a broke person aspiring to be like, I want to speak on stages, I want to write a book. I want to, I want to help people. And there was no path. So we don't know of one that exists either. That's why we created it. We're serving the person. We're serving the person that we once were.

Yeah, well, you know, I want to, I want to touch on, I want to go back to this for just a second because I'd love to hear your thoughts because this was a hard lesson for me to learn. Learn, right. You know, I went through an embezzlement situation with the company I sold a number of years ago. And I had this lady come up to me one time that happened the night before a three day event that I was be teaching for three days straight. Transform you live the first one, 2017. And in walks this I call him a little prophetic woman, right? She's African American lady I loved. Her name was D. And she looks in, I'm about to start crying and because I. She doesn't. I'm about to step on stage for three days and teach for three days. And this was happening the night before, right? Or as far as it was made aware of that. And I remember this concept of her coming to me in this meeting, in this event because she was one of the attendees and walking up and I was starting to cry and she's like, oh no honey. Oh no honey, you can't go to where you're going next without going through this door. Now up until that point, I admired everybody that I followed, right? You and Ramsey and so many others. Maxwell was like somebody I really admired a lot in that and it was like e T was obviously we both worked with ET a little bit and you know, these people I just admired, right? I just admired how they carried themselves and how they showed up and served and tried to model my speaking and all this stuff after them. Anyway, long story short was probably 90 days I did the three day event. I was told it was some of the most, the best content I had done. But I was completely, catastrophically humbled. Like I had nothing to draw on, but exactly what I was teaching on, period. It was stuff that obviously I used to get that far. 90 days goes by, I walk in, I happen to go and sit in her office and I'm sitting in the chair and I'm crying and she's just smiling and she's like, what's on your mind? I'm like, if this is what it takes, I don't want it. God can have it. I don't need to step on a stage. I don't need to write a book. I don't want it, I don't want it. You know what she Said she goes, oh, honey, now you're ready. So I want to talk a little bit about because you and I have both experienced this, you know, as you know, our mutual friend Randy Garnish, I started trying to help some of his thought leader friends monetize their businesses and funnels and things like that. Just with stuff I've learned over the last several years. And we've both ran into.

What I call. It's like a personal brand growth curve. Honestly, it's almost like you move from ego into your authenticity. And I'm curious to know, and I know this is not something we ever talked about before because you're so brilliant at what you do. What do you think are is some way to almost do like a reality check or gut punch to see where you are in your journey? Because it wasn't until that moment that stuff started, like really flowing for me is when I actually finally said, yes, I actually do want to serve people. I actually do want to help people. I actually do have a voice. I do have a truth. I do have something in my spirit. Like how. Because I feel like that's, you know, that's, that's part of breaking through the wall in many respects is being authentic.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think of that less as like a journey that you're on and I think of that more as like a daily decision that you have to make.

Yeah.

So. So here's a good example, right? So you know this. I'm a hardcore Bible thumping Jesus freak. I put it out there, right? So whether you're, whether you're a, you know, a Christian or not, it doesn't matter. But like, stick with me on this. So Colossians 3:23 in the Bible says, do your work unto the Lord and not unto earthly masters, right? And so I hear that and I'm like, yeah, that's good. I should do my work unto the Lord and not unto earthly masters and definitely not unto myself for my own, like, success. And then it hits me, I go, okay, well, how do I really know if the work that I'm doing is for the Lord or if it's for my own selfish interest or if it's to try to win the approval of other people? Because here's the irony. Either way, I should do great work, right? If I'm trying to garner fame and accolades for myself, I have to be really good at what I do. If I'm trying to earn the genuine approval of others of my colleagues, like, I have to do something really good. And most of all if I'm dedicating my life in service of the Lord and for those of us that believe that we were created by him and in his image and with the abilities that he's given us, that should be excellent work.

Yeah.

So how do I know if I'm creating excellent work? Who's it for? And the only thing I've resolved to on this, Stephen. Yeah, We've never talked about this, but is I have to make that my prayer every day. I. Because in any scenario I'm going to wake up and hopefully do excellent work today. The question is, what's the intention of why I'm doing it and, and who am I doing it for? And so all I can do every day is say, Lord, please use me. Please make my life about you and not me. Please put my life in the service of others. And what's amazing about that is, you know, you get this divine sense of purpose and fulfillment and, and it's, and it's amazing. So again, you know, like I think of, you know, somebody, this is, I don't know, I think it's in Matthew, I think it's probably in a few of the gospels. But somebody comes up to Jesus and you know, says, you know, there's like 617 laws in the Old Testament or something, something like that. 617, I think. And anyways, like this guy says, well, Jesus, which, like, which one's the most important? And Jesus goes, oh well, love the God, love the Lord, your God with all your heart and your mind and your soul, and love your neighbor as thyself. Basically love God and love others. And that's such a simple but beautiful, profound strategy that I go, if I'm doing my work unto the Lord, and even if you don't believe in God, if I'm doing my work unto make the world a better place, I have purpose, I have passion. My mind begins to transcend limitations of what I think I'm capable of. And I get out of this negative self talk of I'm not sure I'm good enough or I'm not sure I'm smart enough or I don't have the connections or I don't have enough money, or all the self limiting beliefs that show up in a self centered conversation. And my mind becomes consumed with how can I help that person? What would make them succeed faster? Where are they stuck? What, what do I have to offer that could be useful for them? And that's the whole strategy. Like both in a spiritual sense, but also in a practical one, like Part of the way that I've developed relationships with so many of these client people who then became clients. Right. The Lewis Howes, the Amy Porter Fields, the Ed Myletts, et the Hip Hop Preacher is.

My goal isn't to sell to them. My goal is to be so useful to them that they can't ignore me. Yeah, right. To be so helpful that they have to pay attention. And great economic and worldly things come out of that as a byproduct. But much more important is meaningful relationships and a deep sense of purpose for myself. And hopefully Brand Builders Group becomes a big, big amplification of that.

It's already there and just scaling.

I hope so.

Not. I hope so. It's a. It's a fact. So.

Well, and we got to. That's got to be a part of our culture, of our. Of every person on our team and. And every one of our clients. And so we curate our clients, like, pretty stringently. There's. There's a lot of people that we don't allow to become clients. But, you know, coming back to your question, you know, I don't know a way to put the ego to rest permanently.

Yeah.

All I know is that every day I can wake up and I can say, God, everything you've given me, I give back to you. My life is yours.

Yeah.

God, take this company and make it whatever you want.

Yeah.

Take this. You know, take this book, God, and like, whatever. Whatever you want to have happen, let it be.

Yeah.

I trust you. And whatever the results are, I surrender to whatever that is.

Yeah.

That's the only thing. I don't know how to put my ego to bed. All I know is the discipline of waking up every day and doing that.

Well, it sounds like you put the ego to bed by the same way I had to do it, which is surrender.

Surrender.

Yeah. Just. Yeah. Surrender to the. Yeah. Dude, that was so good.

Well, and sometimes it's like. I think it's like, you know, it's like, well, why do bad things happen? You know, who knows? But what I do know is that a lot of times in my own life, I've had to be beaten down to the point where I give up.

Yeah.

It's what Dee told you, right? I have had to get to the point where I quit, because I'm like, I can't take this anymore. I can't carry this stress. I cannot go to bed every night thinking that we have 50 employees and all their families now, that we now own a building, and we have dozens of book launches that are like life changing moments that are literally in our hands that, you know, our mission driven messengers are, are reaching millions of people every day. And like the obligate, the weight of going, we better not screw up.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I can't carry that.

Yeah.

So I'm like, this is not my problem. This is your problem, bro.

I'm so happy you acknowledge that because, I mean, you guys are, you guys are playing a massive role in changing lives. As a Bible, you and I obviously did a. Helped Ed with his book launch a number of years ago. And you know, I think I shared with you in another podcast, like, dude, it was just an honor to know that we got to touch lives through.

Through helping Ed was doing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that was such a surreal moment. And it sounds like you get to relive that almost every day.

Well, yeah, I mean, if you just took, you know, we have like 900 active members in our, our flagship coaching program. So if you added up all the impressions those people get. And that's why we started Brand Builders Group. Right. Brand Builders Group was never started to be a profit maximization endeavor. It was started to be an impact maximization endeavor. It was to go, what could we do that actually would shape the world? And it's like if we took everything we knew and applied it to just my personal brand or AJ's. AJ, my wife and my business partner, our CEO, for those of you that.

Don'T know, which is by the rock, by the way, she's a rockstar CEO.

She is.

She is bad.

And this is her first book. You know, we co authored it together. And yeah, what's cool is Take the Stairs is really like my life story coming out for this. This is more of like the tactics, but this is her first book, so her life story is really in the book.

That's so good.

First time, so good. But I think we were going, oh, yeah, like, we could make a much bigger dent in the world if we took what we know and multiplied it through mission driven messengers like you.

Yeah.

And that's really amazing. And, and, and, and now we're trying to go, all right, well, how could, how do we make sure that this thing would continue even if we weren't here?

Yeah, the legacy play.

Yeah, like just.

Yeah, Legacy. Build it.

Build up for legacy to go. Because it's truly, it's truly God's. And you know, our first business was we started in 2006. We grew that to eight figures. We had 200 team members. It took us 12 years to do that. We lost everything overnight. Very unexpectedly, Brand Builders Group got back to eight figures in five years. We had no team, no investors, no money, no followers. We started completely from scratch, and we got back in half the time. And you go, how? We gave it to God from first day.

You gave it to God, and you also stepped out. Just. And if I'm not mistaken, it started with you just simply helping a friend.

Yeah, I was helping Louis. Yeah, Louis. It was just. We're trying to just be useful to Louis. We didn't even need anything from him at the time when. When Lewis Howes and I became buddies, I just thought he was cool.

Yeah.

And. And, you know, I could tell. I was like, man, this guy's gonna. He's gonna be something big in the world. And that was long before he was everything he is now, which is massive. And.

You know, I just. I think.

I think there's not enough conversation about the power of service in personal brands. People are like, their scoreboard is, how much money did I make? How many followers do I have? What stages did I get on? What podcast I get invited to? What media outlets have I been featured on? What letters do I have after my name? You know, And I don't think there's anything wrong with those things. How much money is in my bank?

I think they're great as long as they happen organically as a byproduct of service.

Right. That's going to be the healthiest. The healthiest and most sustainable thing is to go, how can I fall in love with the idea of taking everything that I have and everything I am and helping other people with it? And that is not only the, like, emotional strategy, it's the practical one. You're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. So, you know, one of the things that we talk about in the book is start with who. Okay. So, you know, I'm a huge Simon Sinek fan. I think Simon is brilliant. He's one of my favorite writers. I think he's one of the most brilliant thinkers of our time. And, you know, he popularized the phrase start with. Why? Largely, I think his. That book and his writing is targeted towards organizations. Well, with individual personal brands. I actually don't think that advice is right. I think for what. What we've seen to be successful is you start with who. The moment I'm clear, the moment a personal brand becomes clear on who they're serving, every single other downstream decision becomes clear. Right. Like, if I know exactly who I'm trying to serve, I Know where they hang out. So I know where to advertise. I know what words I should use on my advertisements and on my pages. I know exactly what products to create because I know what needs they have that need to be solved. I know how much money they make, so I know how to price my offerings. I know exactly what they're going to need to implement those solutions once they buy them. And so I know what team to build. I know what technology we need to have to support that. Like, everything is clear. Contrast that with somebody who goes, I want to help the whole world.

Well, that was me at the beginning.

So now you got to advertise to the whole world.

Yeah. Which is expensive, by the way.

It's expensive. You have to use language that appeals to everyone. You have to talk about problems that every person has. You have to create products that. That every single person could buy. What is that? By definition? That is commoditization. That is a race to the most general, generic, most universal, ubiquitous thing that applies to everybody. And that's what most people do. And they bounce off the wall and they're caught up in the very sea of noise they're trying to escape. And the only way you break through that wall is if you have huge budgets or you already have massive fame. You already have to be super rich or super or super famous.

Yeah.

The way for the rest of us, the way to break through is find that uniqueness, serve off one specific who, and serve them in a deep way. And you go, you don't need millions of followers. I knew you wanted to talk about monetization strategy. So this is where, like, suddenly the spiritual connects with, like, making money.

Yeah.

As you go, you know, people think, I need millions of followers so I can make a lot of money. You don't need millions of followers to make millions of dollars. For the average small business. Literally, like, think about this for a second. Most of you watching could triple your best year in income ever with probably less than two dozen of your perfect clients. Wow. Like, if you had 24 people buy your top end service.

Mm.

You would probably triple your best year ever. It would.

Yeah.

I would be willing to bet you would definitely be your best year ever. That's 24 people. There's billions of people on the planet. You don't need millions of followers to make millions of dollars.

Yeah.

Everyone is so focused on the width of their reach that they're forgetting and overlooking the depth of their impact. The key to making money is to serve a few people in a really deep and profound way that's the key to getting rich.

You know what's really interesting about that is I'm aware.

I can't remember if it was a year or two ago or three years ago, but it was a time and place where there were a couple launches happening at the same time. And the person. It reminds me. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of Jesus telling a parable of how the Pharisee went to go drop in their 10% at the, @ the temple. And yet a woman walks up the stairs and she's an elderly woman, and she's literally giving everything that she has as an offering to God. And Jesus is very clear. He's like, which one gave more? Right? And Even though the 10% wasn't remotely close to what the widow had in her possession, God smiled on that. On that give. Right? And what, what comes to mind is that is. I don't think it was that long ago. There were a couple major launches happening at one time. One was a bit of a celebrity, one was not, and yet the one that was not because they showed up to serve in many cases outperform the celebrity.

Endorsement. You're talking about one of our.

Clients. I'm just talking about, I'm talking about in.

General. Yeah, that's true. We, we had, we had a, we had a client with. That was very, very famous. I mean, like millions and millions of followers show on Netflix, like the whole thing. And then we had a client who had 800 Instagram.

Followers. Yeah. And I knew I heard from.

Somewhere. Yeah, yeah. This is a true story. And, and we taught them both what we do. I mean, book launches is one thing we do. Right. Like we.

Do. Yeah, it's one of many.

Things. One of many things. I mean.

For. This is your. The personal brand.

World. Yeah, we only do things for personal brands. But like book launches. This is one of the things. And so we taught them both the same system. And the rookie went out and did everything that we said. The celebrity was like, it's a lot of work. I'm just going to post on social media. And this rookie outsold the celebrity author who got a huge advance, by the way, from a publisher on launch week, and a year later had still outsold more of this book. And it's, it's realizing that you can go deep and that, that. So there's a, there's a, there's a technique we talk about in the book that we. A pattern we started to notice. We call it fractal math. And this is how you get rich quick. So if you want to know.

Well, as I was actually ask you in a couple minutes, we have left about how. How to actually use fractal math. To.

Monetize. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about it. Right? So here. Here we go from like, Jesus.

To like, hey, it's all.

Connected.

So here's the concept of fractal math. This is the principle. It says 10% of your audience will invest at a level 10 times what they've already invested with you if you give them more application and more intimacy. All right, so let's say you have a product that's $30 and you get a thousand people to buy it. Okay? For you Math majors, that's 30,000 in revenue, right? $30. Thousand people to buy.

It. Multiply x in the.

Middle. So, so now if you go, I made 30,000 in revenue. What's the fastest, cheapest, easiest way to double my revenue? What most of us do, naturally, is we think about width, and we go, great, go get another thousand customers to buy your $30 product. And that's not wrong to do that. That is true. That would double your revenue. But that is the most expensive, slowest, hardest way to double your revenue. The easiest, fastest way to double your revenue is to use fractal math. So what is fractal math again? 10% of your customers will invest at a level 10 times more if you increase their application and intimacy. So if you had a thousand people buy at 30, fractal math says that 100 of those thousand, which is 10%, would invest 10 times more, meaning $300. So a hundred of those people would buy a $300 offering if you just served them in a deeper way. Now look what's happened. You've doubled your revenue because 300 times 100 is also 3,000. 30,000. Same as 30 times a thousand. You've doubled your revenue. But here's the key. No customer acquisition cost, right? The most expensive customer is a new.

Customer. Ain't that the.

Truth? We had no customer acquisition cost, and it continues to go forward. So if 100 people gave you $300, then 10 of those hundred, 10% of the hundred is 10 people would give you $3,000. That's another $30,000. And that means one of those 10 people that gave you 3,000 more than that would give you $30,000. So there you have 30, 30, 30, 30, $120,000. You quadrupled your revenue, didn't add.

A single new customer or spend any more money on.

Ads. And instead of trying to reach millions of people by trying to go wide. You instead, were deliberate and intelligent. You spent no money, no other money, and you went.

Deep.

Yeah. And it was faster, it was easier, and it was way more profitable. And nobody does this until you work with us and then we teach.

You. I was gonna say, I'm trying to do it. Yeah, yeah. It's. God.

Dude.

You're. You're. Man, I'm so, so happy God created you.

Bro.

I.

Mean. I mean, I don't mean that.

Obviously.

There's. There's. There's business insights that I grasp, but you're just an amazing human. I've had. I've get. I get the pleasure to honor hanging out with you from time to time. And, you know, I guess in closing this thing out, I want to encourage everybody to go make sure you get your own copy of Wealthy and well Known. Rory's already going to give you a free.

Copy. Freebrand audiobook.com build b u I l d freebrandaudiobook.com.

Build. I'm telling you right now, what you got is a small. A very small piece of what's in this book. And I can't thank you enough, bro. You. You've. You have been one of the. The few that, when I started this journey, you and like Evan Carmichael and Randy and some others that really stepped in said, bro, I think you got something here. I think you should keep going. I don't think you should give up. I think you should really go out there and get a message that resonates out to an audience, and I want to thank you for that because it means the world to me because I almost gave up probably five or six times on this journey. Well, you're.

You're. You're welcome. It's. It's a. It's an honor to do that, and it's a privilege. And here's what I would say to you. And I would say to you if you feel a calling on your heart, right? Like, if you listen to this whole conversation and you're like, man, I have this nudge. Like, I have this calling that I feel like I should share my story. I feel like I have something to teach. I feel like I have something to offer. I feel like I could help the person that I once was. We believe that the. That calling that you are experiencing is actually the result of a signal that is being sent out from somebody else right now who needs you. And that's actually a signal that you could measure scientifically that somebody out there, that person needs you. Much more than you need them. Right? Like, that's the person that matters. That's where our worthiness comes from. That's where that the purpose comes from. Because they're out there. Like you're going, oh, man, I feel like I could do something cool and I could inspire people. They are quite literally on their hands and knees, crying, begging and pleading and praying out to God or the universe or just desperately seeking and searching answers that you know like the back of your hand. Why? Because you've already been embezzled from, you already built a nine figure company, you already were homeless, You've already been through stuff in your personal life. Like you've already gone through the things that they're in the middle of and your very existence, the fact that you have survived all of that and they meet somebody to go, wow, there is, there is hope. Like you're, you're, you're a living testimony before you even teach them anything of like, there's hope for me. And that's why every single person matters, every single story matters, every heartbreak you've been through. And you just have to ask yourself, what challenge have I conquered? What setback have I survived? What tragedy have I triumphed over? Because all of those things were a part of preparing you and shaping you and molding you into the person you needed to become to reach back one day and help somebody else. And I believe that that is God's divine design of your identity. But even if it's not his design and you don't believe in him, you believe in humans and you can recognize the power of another person's story. So go be that person for.

Someone. Bro. You're amazing, man. Love you.

Bro. Love you.

Man. Can't. Thank you so.

Much. Thank.

You. Hey, guys. That's gonna do it for this episode of Build. Yes. Go get your free downloaded copy right now of the audiobook of wealthy and well known. I promise you, you're going to love that. But you're also love getting a couple copies for yourself. More importantly, I want you to go right now. Stop what you're doing, literally. Pause the video, pause the audio. Go to your favorite social media app and I want you to follow Rory and AJ Vaden right now. Right now. Because they can speak life into your life as they spoken life into mine. We'll see you in the next episode. Much love. Take care. Peace.