Design Speaks podcast • episode 188

Episode Transcription: Design Speaks Podcast – Episode 190

Chris Do (00:00:00) – To me, personal branding is not an act of creation. It’s an act of remembering. So in this way, I remember and I help you to remember who you are.

BrandiSea (00:00:11) – Hello and welcome to Design Speaks. I’m Brandi Sea and I’m thrilled to be your personal creative director, your quirky no nonsense guide to all things design. We’ll uncover how to find uncommon sources of inspiration, dig in to design, process and even chat with other amazing creatives in the industry. If you’re ready to get inspired, explore powerful design strategies and level up your design game like never before. You’re in the right place. It’s time to take control of your creativity.

BrandiSea (00:00:40) – Let’s go. We all and we will share this.

BrandiSea (00:00:46) – I am so excited. I’ve been trying so hard for a long time to get this conversation booked with Chris Do. Today we’re going to be chatting about primarily personal branding, which is something that he is particularly interested in talking about today. Chris is a really well known figure in the design and creative industry. If you don’t already know him, I will allow him just a short time to do his probably really well rehearsed pitch on what it is that you do.

Chris Do (00:01:14) – Is that is that the cue for me to say it? Now?

BrandiSea (00:01:17) – That’s you. You can go now. I’ll let you speak.

Chris Do (00:01:19) – Hi, everybody. My name is Chris Do. I’m a loud introvert, a serial entrepreneur, recovering graphic designer and an educator. And I have this really big mission to teach a billion people how to make a living doing what they love. And currently that is through personal branding.

BrandiSea (00:01:33) – Wow. I feel like I should have set a timer. That’s like a record. I don’t even think that was like a 32nd pitch. That was pretty great. Thanks. So, okay, I have a good long list of questions that I have prepared, but we will just kind of let the conversation go where it will. So first of all, I would like to know a little bit about your journey into this whole personal branding world. I know that you are a part of the future. You have founded the future. You also used to have a lot a different channel on YouTube that you kind of started with.

BrandiSea (00:02:02) – But how did that morph and meld into kind of where you are now?

Chris Do (00:02:08) – Okay. I just want to be clear for the record, For 20 plus years I worked in the service design space. I created commercials and music videos for some of the biggest brands and bands in the world. And in 2014, a friend of mine invited me to go and create an education company with him. His name is Jose Kabir, and we we started to experiment with creating products and content, and YouTube was one of the strategies. So here I am, 42 years old, starting in YouTube and thinking, I think I’m too old for this. And I don’t know if this is the right place for me to be right now. I had this misconception that YouTube was for self taught amateurs who didn’t know anything, and that seems to be like what it was littered with because it’s like you couldn’t find a job, you didn’t go to school. And so what are you going to do? You’re going to become an influencer.

Chris Do (00:02:55) – You’re going to create content. Lo and behold, seven, eight years later, here I am. I don’t run. I don’t do any more client work. I just create content on multiple platforms trying to teach folks. And so that’s the evolution that I’ve gone on.

BrandiSea (00:03:07) – So where has your personal branding come through that? Because I know everybody knows Christo Yes, they probably know the future. They probably know some of the past work you’ve done with companies and things like that also. But I can almost say your name to just about any professional, creative graphic designer illustrator, and they know who you are. So how have you how have you morphed into more of letting that be part of what you do and your name really being well known?

Chris Do (00:03:34) – I didn’t go into creating content with the intention to become famous or to be well known. I just wanted to teach people and that’s really my passion to teach people. And what people don’t realize is I spent 15 years prior to recording videos on YouTube teaching at private art schools like Art Center Otis, a guest lecturing at Cal Arts and other schools.

Chris Do (00:03:56) – And I love that part. The part I didn’t love about it was there’s a couple of components. Number one, the pay was terrible and I just put that they’re terrible. It’s very hard to get rich as a teacher if you teach in institutions. And number two is like, the impact that I wanted to make wasn’t really there. It’s a double edged sword because private art schools, they pride themselves on a low student to teacher ratio. So sometimes my classes literally had five people in them, and this was beautiful because we would spend like almost an hour per person for a critique. We did this for 14 weeks in a row and I love that aspect of it. And I think that was so special. But as one is to do, I started to daydream a little bit while I was teaching, thinking about how cool would it be if we’re in a classroom with 8 or 9 students. But it was like Big Brother where they didn’t realize it, but there were cameras everywhere documenting everything and microphones hidden where we could take that experience, a very bespoke thing, and then transmit that to the world.

Chris Do (00:04:54) – So people who are in impoverished communities or people who are busy, who are unable for a number of different reasons, financial, geographical reasons why they couldn’t attend, why can’t they have access to this? It doesn’t cost more money to do this. It just takes some effort. And that’s what brought me along this whole journey and exploring it. And after a couple of failed attempts at trying to convince institutions and organizations to get involved, I just had to do it myself. And later on I’ve adopted this rule. It’s not my rule. But you’re allowed to complain about something one time. The second time you complained about it, your whiner. It’s like, do something about it, right?

BrandiSea (00:05:31) – Do something.

Chris Do (00:05:32) – About it. Do something about it. That’s it. And your complaints can become your calling. So here I am saying, Oh, it should be better. Why don’t you guys do this? And I’m like every other person I despise now, which is like trying to drive. The bus from the back.

Chris Do (00:05:46) – That’s what everybody does. So now it’s like I got to put my money where my mouth is. I got to make some commitments, some sacrifice. And I started to do this thing. And eventually it takes a while. It took a couple of years for me to find my groove and then make content that seemed to work with people. And I love this. This one aspect of social media is the numbers don’t lie. When you create something, an audience shows up, you know, compared to like the previous thing that you made. And so you get data and I love that. And it’s not always clear to me, like when I’m in a class, it’s just working for people because there’s no metric.

BrandiSea (00:06:17) – What are they absorbing? Yeah.

Chris Do (00:06:19) – Or are they even paying attention? Or they just glazed eyes just pretending to pay attention? You just don’t know. And so I love that aspect of it. So lo and behold, many, many videos later I remember one time a good friend of mine introduced me to an event, a small event, maybe 30 or 40 people.

Chris Do (00:06:34) – It’s like, Oh, please help me welcome design celebrity. Chris I’m like, Who? Who? Who’d you bring? I thought I was speaking next. What? Chris Yeah, Where’s the celebrity? And it was not something that I was comfortable with. So the whole personal branding, the getting known and some of the fame that comes with this was just an all byproduct of me trying to be the best teacher that I can be.

BrandiSea (00:06:57) – I see that. And honestly, the reason I’m sitting here with you is I feel the same. I the reason I have a podcast, a blog, the content that I make is also because I was finding myself like bitter and complaining about certain things in the industry and was like, Well, how come nobody understands what I do? Okay, well, maybe I should explain to them what I do. I feel that humility and I admire it for sure that that wasn’t like a goal that you set out to do. So why is personal branding so special to you? And why is that something that you’re passionate about speaking on? And how do you show people how to separate that from this like cult of personality, people trying to just be the, well, this brand is me.

BrandiSea (00:07:41) – So it’s about me and it’s all about me. And people only care about me and I’m going to show them me getting ready and I’m going to show them, you know, there’s that where people want to see like the behind the scenes on your real life. But then there’s where’s the line? And and how do you teach people the importance of this without it becoming just all about them, Right?

Chris Do (00:08:00) – The show, The Brady Bunch, Marcia or Jan Brady? Yes. You know, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, it’s all about you.

BrandiSea (00:08:08) – Yeah, right. Okay.

Chris Do (00:08:10) – You know, I’m dating myself here, right?

BrandiSea (00:08:12) – You know what? It’s okay. I turned 42 this year, so.

Chris Do (00:08:15) – Your question is multilayered, multifaceted. So it’s going to take some time to unpack, and I’ll do it. And then you interrupt as we need Need to.

BrandiSea (00:08:23) – Okay. Okay.

BrandiSea (00:08:24) – I’ll do my best. I will try not to just sit here and listen.

BrandiSea (00:08:28) – Okay. So the first.

Chris Do (00:08:30) – Part I want to talk about is branding and then I’ll get into personal branding and the times that we live in in terms of the attention economy and the narcissism that can be part of this trapping and and intentionality.

Chris Do (00:08:41) – Okay. And so we’ll start with Marty Neumeier. He’s written several books about this. A brand is the person’s gut feeling about a product service organization. So it’s a feeling and feelings can’t be controlled. They can be influence. Jeff Bezos said your brand is your reputation or what people say about you when you leave the room.

BrandiSea (00:08:59) – Okay, we understand, right?

Chris Do (00:09:01) – So it’s a gut feeling and it’s not what you say it is. It’s what people say it is. Okay, so now what can we do? So the act of branding is impression management. Like what impression am I making on people? And here’s something I heard again just reminded myself just recently, I’ve heard it before from Seth Godin, and he says that a brand is preference If people don’t have a preference for what it is that you do, whether it’s a product or service, then you have no brand. And if you can’t predict what this brand will do, you have no brand again. And it’s quite easy to measure in very quantifiable ways how valuable your brand is.

Chris Do (00:09:37) – And if you’re a designer creative person, you need to listen to this part. So the amount that somebody is willing to pay for what you do, that’s above a cheaper alternative is the value of your brand. So if you’re going to provide a service for your clients, like, say, they make cookies, right? Homemade cookies, they’re brilliant doing it and they price it at $2, but everyone else prices it at $2. And you go through this whole effort of rebranding, changing the logo, changing the packaging, the messaging, and it’s still sold for $2. You’ve not increased their brand at all. So then the effectiveness of your branding is really more an exercise in design and decoration. And so if we want to be effective and to be taken seriously within the business world, we have to look at how do we increase the perceived value of something when nothing else is really different except for what it is that you do now? That’s a.

BrandiSea (00:10:27) – Scary thing.

BrandiSea (00:10:28) – I love that brand is perceived value also.

BrandiSea (00:10:30) – Yes, it really is.

Chris Do (00:10:31) – And if you think about it, let’s test the theory here. And it would be something like a bottle of water. So if you if you buy a Crystal Springs or something, Crystal Geyser, I don’t forget what it’s called.

BrandiSea (00:10:42) – Fiji. Fiji Water. We’ll start with the low end.

Chris Do (00:10:45) – First, Crystal Geyser, which you can probably get for like $0.39 a bottle. Now, is there a story or an emotional attachment to it? I don’t think so. Water is a commodity. We just want something that’s cheap and it’s not going to kill us. But then as you start to move away from the crystal geysers of the world and you start moving up, you’re like, Wait a minute, what about Fiji? What about Voss? What about.

BrandiSea (00:11:06) – Essentially love?

Chris Do (00:11:07) – Voss The same, right? For different reasons, right? And then maybe there’s SmartWater and it’s like, wait a minute, water can be smart. So am I stupid?

BrandiSea (00:11:15) – If I never knew it was dumb, right?

Chris Do (00:11:18) – I don’t want to be dumb.

BrandiSea (00:11:19) – Yes.

Chris Do (00:11:20) – Brilliant name, by the way. So you’re looking at that and.

BrandiSea (00:11:22) – You’re like, okay.

Chris Do (00:11:23) – Why are you now paying $4, $7 for a bottle that you can pay for $0.39? And the more you’re willing to pay, the more valuable that brand is. And the darling of the water world right now is liquid death. Just a brilliant design.

BrandiSea (00:11:37) – Yes. Oh, my gosh.

Chris Do (00:11:38) – Packaging marketed to the right kinds of people, outrageous campaigns. And their story is super interesting. So now we can say, like if you line up all the the brands of water, whoever commands the greatest amount above the cheapest alternative, that’s the most valuable brand. So it could be avion, it could be like Fiji’s very expensive, right? They’ve got a good story and you buy into that story once again. Let’s talk.

BrandiSea (00:12:01) – About I just.

BrandiSea (00:12:02) – Feel like it tastes better.

BrandiSea (00:12:04) – It probably doesn’t. It’s just in my head.

BrandiSea (00:12:06) – It’s in the branding, it’s in my head.

BrandiSea (00:12:08) – Have you done it?

Chris Do (00:12:08) – Have you done a blind taste test yet?

BrandiSea (00:12:10) – No, you.

Chris Do (00:12:11) – Should. And you may surprise yourself. Okay, I have. Okay. So of course. Okay. Can we film this too? We’ve never released it.

BrandiSea (00:12:19) – I didn’t see this.

BrandiSea (00:12:20) – Yes, we haven’t. Really?

Chris Do (00:12:21) – That’s why I went out to the supermarket and spent all kinds of money on bottled water. And then I came back to the office. I labeled each cup and I had, you know, all our people lined up and go Abcd, right. Or however many bottles of water, they would taste it, they would taste it, and they would write their favorite. And then they would write like what they guessed it to be. Now, without the packaging, the label next to the bottle, the cups of water, it’s very hard to distinguish. Very few people got any answers Correct. It’s just minus. We’ll throw it at the wind. And here’s the shocker. You know, it wasn’t by a wide margin, but the the water that they thought tastes the best was the cheapest.

BrandiSea (00:12:58) – No, there’s.

Chris Do (00:12:59) – Your shocker right there. It was like Crystal Geyser.

BrandiSea (00:13:02) – I don’t know.

BrandiSea (00:13:02) – What to learn from that.

BrandiSea (00:13:03) – I don’t know what to learn from that. I’m about to tell.

BrandiSea (00:13:05) – You the cheapest.

BrandiSea (00:13:06) – Water. Well, no, maybe.

Chris Do (00:13:08) – Or maybe there’s this other idea that you and I are not as logical as we think we are, that actually we were.

BrandiSea (00:13:16) – Very emotional.

Chris Do (00:13:17) – Creatures.

BrandiSea (00:13:18) – And how dare you imply such a thing?

BrandiSea (00:13:20) – Yeah, I.

Chris Do (00:13:20) – Know. We’re emotional creatures. We make decisions on not a lot of data and then we post rationalize it after the fact. Seth Godin writes about this in his book All marketers are Liars. And here’s the cool part. You and I were complicit in the lie. The light only works because we want it to work, right? So when we look at the Fiji label and we read like artisanal water, never touched by man, filtered through lava rock, you know, and then comes out to the spout and it’s the most delicious natural silica and all these kinds of things that give it the clean, smooth taste before we drink the water.

Chris Do (00:13:57) – We think we’re in Fiji. We’re thinking and anticipating that smooth taste.

BrandiSea (00:14:01) – This is.

BrandiSea (00:14:02) – What vacation tastes.

Chris Do (00:14:03) – Like. You know, they kind of do that, don’t you think?

BrandiSea (00:14:06) – When you look at the label, it’s got a.

Chris Do (00:14:08) – Little kind of floral thing. It’s beautiful and you’re like.

BrandiSea (00:14:11) – You just like it’s like you immerse yourself in that little scene.

BrandiSea (00:14:14) – Yeah, you really.

Chris Do (00:14:15) – Do. And it’s kind of brilliant. Yeah. Or when you drink avion water, I’m like, Oh, I’m in the French Alps somewhere. I don’t know where I’m at and we’re transported. So I think water is the biggest con that we’re happy to be a part of in somewhere. I don’t know when it happened, actually, I do, because we did a some research on this and I forget some of the details, but at some point someone came to this realization that we should market water. It was because I think in America there were some instances where the water that was coming out of the tap was bad.

Chris Do (00:14:45) – And it was just from that.

BrandiSea (00:14:47) – Opportunity.

BrandiSea (00:14:47) – They needed people to.

BrandiSea (00:14:48) – Live.

Chris Do (00:14:49) – Sprung. And so they’re like, Great, wait a minute, so your water’s not safe. So it’s a great narrative because now we can sell you things at a price that’s more expensive than gasoline, which, if you think about it, requires a lot more resources to get and it’s a lot less available. But yet water sells more per gallon than gasoline does. So we’re kind of we want to be wild. We want to be lied to. And so when they tell us a story, we want to believe, we believe it. The same is true about almost every single thing bottles of wine, types of beer, anything you eat, anything you touch or like. That’s a premium product.

BrandiSea (00:15:23) – It’s branding. It’s for sure. Branding. Yeah. The off brand green beans sitting next to the other one are probably very likely the same green beans. It’s just a different package.

BrandiSea (00:15:35) – Yes.

Chris Do (00:15:35) – Now, when when I was growing up, we didn’t have a lot of money.

Chris Do (00:15:39) – I’m a first generation immigrant and we would shop in these. Kind of a little rougher neighborhoods, right? Because that’s where we live, the supermarket. And you’d go in there and I would walk around the aisle with my mom and then I would go to they had literally an aisle with the generic yellow label. I don’t know if you remember this. It’s and I don’t think they have anymore.

BrandiSea (00:15:58) – Yes, I do. Okay.

Chris Do (00:15:59) – You do remember this generic brand?

BrandiSea (00:16:01) – Yes. Like generic bread. Yeah.

Chris Do (00:16:03) – You know, whatever it was. And you have all.

BrandiSea (00:16:04) – These products.

Chris Do (00:16:05) – And it was like Helvetica with yellow background, Right? And then, oh, my gosh, why is this so, so much cheaper than Wonder Bread? Which at that time I was like, This is it Wonder Bread?

BrandiSea (00:16:15) – Mom, can I please just get Wonder Bread?

BrandiSea (00:16:17) – No kidding.

BrandiSea (00:16:18) – Right?

BrandiSea (00:16:18) – Not today. No, no, no, no. We ain’t rich.

Chris Do (00:16:20) – What do you think? Put that stuff.

BrandiSea (00:16:21) – Back, right? Yeah.

BrandiSea (00:16:23) – It’s a little ridiculous to think.

Chris Do (00:16:25) – About it now. I was like.

BrandiSea (00:16:25) – Mom, it is. It is. You know, it’s like $1.50 more, right? We can afford this, right? You can have that little bread and.

Chris Do (00:16:31) – You go home and you eat it and it tastes different. And I think it really does taste different because they they cut corners or they’re just not made to the exact same standards. Now, thankfully, good news in most stores now, the store brand is literally the same brand. It’s just OEM with a different label. So it’s now not like the cheaper bread, it’s just the same bread, but you’re not paying for the label. But back then we would sit there and associate that generic. The generic brand is just never as good. The Frosted Flakes not as good, the bread.

BrandiSea (00:17:00) – A little bit. It’s a.

Chris Do (00:17:02) – Little stiff. It’s not as fluffy as the Wonder Bread, right? It’s just like that. Now, that leads us to this next part, which is like, how did we get here? Why are we in this place of personal branding? Why does it matter? For that, I have to point out two things, two observations.

Chris Do (00:17:16) – So if you don’t like my thesis, you’re not going to go along with this. Right? And it’s totally.

BrandiSea (00:17:20) – Okay.

BrandiSea (00:17:21) – And we’ll just cut We’ll just end the conversation.

BrandiSea (00:17:23) – Yeah.

BrandiSea (00:17:23) – And just I don’t agree. We’ll just say goodbye.

BrandiSea (00:17:26) – Okay.

Chris Do (00:17:26) – Number one.

BrandiSea (00:17:27) – We live.

Chris Do (00:17:28) – In a overcommunicate society where the world has really shrunk and things that are happening far away from you, you can connect to. And our ability to talk to each other is really powerful. And so what products and advertisers have figured out or companies and advertisers have figured out is you saying something nice about our product is way more effective than us saying something nice about our product. Again, it’s not believable. Right. Versus what we say. And the power has really shifted from corporations and advertisers to individuals because we can talk to each other. So if you have a bad experience at a restaurant, at a car dealership, at a clothing store, retail experience, then you’re going to go around telling everybody what you think. And the platforms.

BrandiSea (00:18:13) – Like Google.

BrandiSea (00:18:13) – Review immediately.

BrandiSea (00:18:15) – Write Yelp Review.

Chris Do (00:18:17) – Yeah, Rotten Tomatoes review and just countless reviews.

BrandiSea (00:18:21) – It’s like word of mouth, like amplified times a thousand, right?

Chris Do (00:18:25) – So the the citizen journalist or critic has become more powerful than the anointed critics and they’ve kind of pretty much have all been wiped out at this point because there’s believability and trustworthiness when we all say like, this is a good film, this is a good meal.

BrandiSea (00:18:41) – Honestly, I was just about to say, for movies, if if I hear a number of critics say they don’t like something, I’m like, Oh, I’ll probably like it then.

BrandiSea (00:18:49) – Yeah. So we don’t.

BrandiSea (00:18:50) – Believe what they have.

BrandiSea (00:18:51) – To say, right?

Chris Do (00:18:51) – Because they have a very specific agenda and a point of view. But if you go and read a rotten tomato where it’s like 97% and there’s like 25,000 people saying that like, okay, I think I trust that. And I’ve not been disappointed very often when the Metacritic Rotten Tomatoes thing has worked has said it’s a good, good movie.

Chris Do (00:19:11) – So we’re in this place now. We understand that the people who can bring others together, a community and audience, we will call them influencers, they actually are very powerful today. And the beautiful part is all the gatekeepers have been virtually eliminated. Meaning tomorrow, if you wanted to talk about something and you became really passionate about it, then everybody would start to listen to you. You would hold a tremendous amount of power and you don’t need any credentials. You need to go to school. You know, you don’t have to be knighted by anybody. You’re ready to go. And so now we live in what many people would refer to as the attention economy, which is a subset of the information economy. So whoever can capture, control or leverage attention will be super wealthy. And this is really important. So some people would say we’re not in the attention economy, attention is the economy. So let’s look at some.

BrandiSea (00:20:01) – Some examples.

Chris Do (00:20:02) – Of this. Right. You see where we’re going with this?

BrandiSea (00:20:03) – Okay.

BrandiSea (00:20:03) – Okay.

BrandiSea (00:20:04) – I’m here.

BrandiSea (00:20:04) – For it. Right. Right.

Chris Do (00:20:05) – So just recently, this YouTuber, you may have heard of him, his name is Logan Paul. He teamed up with another YouTuber. His name is I know.

BrandiSea (00:20:15) – And they don’t live in.

BrandiSea (00:20:16) – The world.

Chris Do (00:20:16) – Right? They started an energy drink called Prime. And Prime is one of the fastest growing energy energy drinks in in its category and is now on track to making Logan Paul a billionaire. So here he was doing his thing, nearly being canceled several times, resurrected himself, got involved in this energy drink thing, and now is going to become a billionaire. And I don’t know if he’s even 30 yet. And this is remarkable. And if you look at Reese Witherspoon, who. Who sold her production company for almost $1 billion, 900 or something. Million dollars. I didn’t even know Reese Witherspoon was doing this. And this is brilliant. And I like to to expand on that a little bit. So Reese Witherspoon is a famous actress.

Chris Do (00:20:58) – Right. And she’s kind of got that homegrown girl next door. She’s attractive but not super.

BrandiSea (00:21:05) – You know? Yeah, She.

Chris Do (00:21:06) – She can play a bunch of different things. Well, here’s the cool thing. She leveraged her following and created a book club. Do you know about this?

BrandiSea (00:21:14) – Okay, so you’re.

BrandiSea (00:21:15) – Part of.

BrandiSea (00:21:15) – This.

Chris Do (00:21:16) – Oh, you are. Oh, my God. You’re part of the ecosystem. So, you know. So she has over 2 million.

BrandiSea (00:21:21) – I love.

BrandiSea (00:21:22) – Reese Witherspoon.

Chris Do (00:21:23) – Right? She has over 2 million people who are part of this book club. So that’s a lot of power. That’s a lot of leverage. And so what’s interesting is if you can command the attention of 2 million people and you say read this book, it’s a really good book. Well, who who who would be like, you’d be crazy to walk away from an opportunity like that, for example. So if I’m writing a book, the thing I want is for people to buy and then read my book.

Chris Do (00:21:47) – And so to be able to get into Reese Witherspoon’s collection, you have to agree to give her the license or the right to produce film, TV, show and games or whatever media that she wants.

BrandiSea (00:22:00) – I didn’t know that. That’s interesting.

Chris Do (00:22:03) – And then she can then sell 100,000 books for you. 200,000, maybe a million. And that would make your life in your career. And so she has the option to then go and produce a film. Now, here’s the cool part. Maybe it’s not really a book club. Maybe it’s providing her with analytics because if she recommends a book and people buy it and they’re raving about it and they’re talking about it, that’s a pretty good research group where she can use that data and then to go and produce TV shows and films out of this. So when she sold her production company and I understand the whole story, then it all makes perfect sense. You’re not really buying a production company for $1 billion. You’re buying this entire ecosystem of validated, vetted books with metrics and analytics, the same way that Netflix uses their data to produce more TV shows that people are going to like.

Chris Do (00:22:54) – Just it’s a data game and that’s brilliant to me. So here she is, $1 billion I had heard recently. George Clooney is worth $1 billion also because of his nescafé and something else that he’s working on and and and which Ryan is that that owns Mint Mobile. Ryan Reynolds is he’s an okay actor, a pretty good looking guy. You know, it’s not a giant box office draw, but Ryan invests in mint mobile and now he’s going to be worth a gazillion dollars to and what they’re all doing, the narrative thread I’m trying to weave here is they’ve mastered how to leverage their popularity and the attention and they built other businesses. Gwyneth Paltrow has done this. Jessica Alba has done this, and they don’t need to work anymore. So now we can see how valuable attention is. It’s not the attention economy. Attention is the.

BrandiSea (00:23:40) – Economy. Tom, and interrupt you real quick.

BrandiSea (00:23:42) – Go ahead.

BrandiSea (00:23:43) – This may be something you’re about to answer and you can just send me on my way if that’s the case.

BrandiSea (00:23:47) – What if those people kind of already have a platform? They already have like their personal brand, sort of like because they’re actors in these cases, Right. I would love maybe at some point here in this conversation to talk about like, well, what if these what if someone’s just starting and they don’t have a personal brand, they don’t have a platform? So I’ll let you continue on point number two and then we can we can go there. I just wanted to throw that in there.

BrandiSea (00:24:09) – Okay. Sure.

Chris Do (00:24:10) – So now we’re going to connect to two things here. Understanding branding and strong brands have preference over cheaper alternatives. Now we understand that we’re living in a place where if you can capture attention and utilize it, you’re going to be very wealthy. So now branding attention, branding attention, let’s start to put those two things together. Now, to your point, Brandi, they’re already famous, Dirty, rich. The rich just keep getting richer. Like it’s killing us, right? All you ugly poor people.

Chris Do (00:24:34) – It’s just too bad. Right? Right. Okay. I don’t want to kick a dog when they’re down. So let’s look at this. I first started with Logan Paul, who, for all intents and purposes, it’s just like everybody else. He’s from Ohio. He started making YouTube videos and Marcus Brownlee started making YouTube videos when he was very young. And they built their own fame on their own terms without any help from Hollywood. And you could argue whether or not they’re good looking or not or were they have any real charisma, but they created this on their own. And there are more and more stories like this, Mr. Beast, not the best looking guy in the world, probably will be the richest YouTuber that’s ever existed. PewDiePie a video game streamer Ninja. So you have oddball character types who, through their skills, their passion, their charisma, or just because they’re interested in playing, they’re able to create an audience and do this. And now we’re also seeing beauty influencers come out of nowhere, and they didn’t have to go through the Ford Modeling Agency.

Chris Do (00:25:29) – They didn’t have to walk the runway. They don’t have the perfect story background, but they have a story in the background that a lot of people connect with and resonate with. So if you’re a Joe Schmo, if you’re, you know, plain Jane, whatever it is, what are you going to be able to do? And we know this right now, you. You want to differentiate yourself from your competition. And the way that you do that is by being different. To differentiate means to be different, not just to be different, but to be radically different. You do this for brands and you do this for personal brands. So when we think of a designer, I’m going to ask you this question present company excluded. When I say designer, give me a name.

BrandiSea (00:26:04) – Oh gosh. Any name? Paul Rand.

Chris Do (00:26:08) – Perfect. Give me a name that’s still alive.

BrandiSea (00:26:10) – Good answer. James.

BrandiSea (00:26:11) – Victor.

Chris Do (00:26:12) – Perfect. Great answer as well. Okay. I’m going to ask you for a third name, and that’ll be plenty.

Chris Do (00:26:17) – Somebody who’s alive.

Chris Do (00:26:20) – Chip Kidd.

BrandiSea (00:26:21) – Chip Kidd.

Chris Do (00:26:21) – Okay. I love your taste in designers. This is excellent. You probably do that as.

BrandiSea (00:26:26) – A subtle flex.

Chris Do (00:26:27) – Brand. He’s like, Oh.

BrandiSea (00:26:28) – I got you.

BrandiSea (00:26:30) – Paul. I love. I love these people. Like, legitimately.

BrandiSea (00:26:34) – Yes. Yes.

Chris Do (00:26:35) – Paul Rand Great. One of the greatest American pioneers in graphic design, written several books, taught at the what is it is a Harvard Yale. He taught at Yale. You picked James Victory, whose work is already included in museums, and I like to consider him a professional friend today. James Victoria.

BrandiSea (00:26:52) – And I’ve actually.

BrandiSea (00:26:54) – Worked with him.

BrandiSea (00:26:55) – Before. Yeah.

BrandiSea (00:26:56) – Awesome kid. Kid. I have yet to meet.

Chris Do (00:26:58) – One of the best known book designers, most celebrated book designers, super smart guy, very prolific, brilliant body of work. So you’re not just picking some of the new kids, which I love, and you pick these people because they’ve done something that’s great. But also, I imagine if they didn’t make any effort to be known, you probably can’t pick them because you can’t prefer something that you don’t know.

Chris Do (00:27:18) – Paul ran. Like I said, I think he’s written four books and he’s a teacher and he’s a celebrated designer in an age Pre-social media, right? Chip Kid.

BrandiSea (00:27:26) – Yes.

Chris Do (00:27:27) – He’s got books out and he’s designed book covers. So there’s a good chance you probably purchase the book that Chip Kidd is designed the book cover for. So and he does public speaking.

BrandiSea (00:27:37) – I’m a big book.

BrandiSea (00:27:37) – Geek, so that’s.

BrandiSea (00:27:38) – Part of that.

BrandiSea (00:27:39) – And James.

Chris Do (00:27:40) – Victory. He has his own social media channel. He’s producing lots of content and he’s also prolific creator whose work you’ve probably have seen somewhere on a magazine in the museum or in a design annual somewhere. So they make it easier for you, the common person to find them, and then hopefully to connect with them and to prefer them. But let me ask you this question. Of the three designers. I know you worked with one of them. Do you know a lot about their personality, who they are, besides their.

BrandiSea (00:28:06) – Body of work?

BrandiSea (00:28:07) – I would say a little bit.

BrandiSea (00:28:08) – Chip kid, I don’t know much about Paul Ryan’s personality. Yeah, and.

Chris Do (00:28:15) – Yeah. So you have personal experience with James Victoria? I’ve watched videos. I’ve talked to people who were Paul Rand students and they would mimic his voice. He’s a cantankerous old man that’s highly opinionated.

BrandiSea (00:28:28) – And.

Chris Do (00:28:29) – Thrifty on compliments. And that kind of fits how you would think of Paul Rand. Any, any grace if you.

BrandiSea (00:28:36) – You got to work for.

Chris Do (00:28:37) – It. If you don’t show up, you’re going to get torn apart part of that old school. But here’s the interesting thing. In the time that we live in today, your personality, hence the word like person, person, no brand.

BrandiSea (00:28:50) – Personality, branding.

Chris Do (00:28:51) – And the person matters a lot. It matters a lot because just like that example illustration of bottled water, the bottled water, the package, the design of the shape of the bottle itself. Like Voss. Very interesting. Bottle shape, right glass with a silver top.

BrandiSea (00:29:07) – Oh, things do taste better in glass.

Chris Do (00:29:10) – They just feel like higher quality, don’t they? It’s more substantive.

BrandiSea (00:29:14) – It’s heavy. Okay.

Chris Do (00:29:15) – Yes, it’s whatever your anti plastic. This all.

BrandiSea (00:29:18) – Works. All this talk.

BrandiSea (00:29:19) – Of water is just making me thirsty.

BrandiSea (00:29:20) – Keep going.

Chris Do (00:29:22) – So what’s happening is each one of these products is packaged in such a way that differentiates them from the competitor and comes with a story. Sometimes you make up the story and sometimes a story is assisted or you’re assisted in understanding the story because it’s written on the label or they’ve done marketing so you understand who they are. The name, the tagline often or the illustration in the case of Liquid Death tells you something. All this is punk rock, man. They’re pretty funny. And I like to think of myself as like.

BrandiSea (00:29:53) – I love their story too. They’re very, very.

Chris Do (00:29:56) – Good at telling their story.

BrandiSea (00:29:57) – So yes.

Chris Do (00:29:58) – You look at you with your body of work. If you don’t tell the story, you’re just like water. Not in a good way, like a commodity easily exchanged with other people.

Chris Do (00:30:07) – And I talked to Michael Margolis recently and he wrote the book Brand X. He says, basically every product comes with a story. Some stories are good, some stories are forgettable, and some stories absolutely resonate. And so a product without a story is a commodity. I have no affinity. I have no connection. It’s generic bread. Again, it’s generic corn flakes and that’s it. And we don’t want that. So when we start to talk about developing your personal brand, it’s being intentional about telling your story. And it’s not about fabricating something. It’s about rediscovering who you are. I’ll take a breath here. I can go much deeper, but I just want to give you an opportunity to respond.

BrandiSea (00:30:43) – Yeah, yeah. So I wrote down just a few things. So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this, and, you know, there’s a couple, a couple of things as far as personal branding, and I’ll just go from my own experience for my own stuff. There’s always the struggle with like, we grow as humans, right? And our story is constantly evolving and changing and we’re learning new things.

BrandiSea (00:31:03) – You know, we are still us. But how does the growing and changing of the person contribute to consistency or not of a personal brand? And then also thinking about what are your thoughts on personal branding basically being you, especially in social media and creating content and stuff you But like I like to say with the vibrance and saturation turned up, so it’s like it’s you, but it’s a little bit extra you to make sure that you really show that to people, right? Like I have this shirt on that says Yellow is my power color. It is a part of my branding. But also I don’t just wear yellow every day of my life. It’s part of my outward facing. You know, I’m a creative director. Brand So thoughts on those two things?

Chris Do (00:31:48) – Yes, absolutely. Number one is, I think from from birth to about 22, 23, your brain gets formed. You kind of start to figure out who you are. You’ve graduated from college, you live in the real world and everything that you’ve been taught, it’s kind of in you.

Chris Do (00:32:04) – And those parts don’t really change and you really can’t change your backstory where you’re from, who your parents are, if you had it tough or not, because then that comes across as being disingenuous and people get exposed for those kinds of things all the time. Now, you as a human being, hopefully if you play the game right until the day you die, you’re learning, you’re evolving, but your moral compass, some of your initial how you orient in the world will never change. Like if you if you know right from wrong tomorrow, it doesn’t become wrong and then right. It’s just going to be the way it is. But you might like different music. You might wear your hair differently so that how you express yourself and your preferences for music, for art and for culture and for writing should evolve. You’re not supposed to like the same band that you liked when you were 13 years old. You know, you can take all those in-sync posters. I mean, you could.

BrandiSea (00:32:53) – You could. Most people don’t.

Chris Do (00:32:55) – They just.

BrandiSea (00:32:55) – Evolved. It’s just nostalgia a little bit, right?

Chris Do (00:32:58) – So that’s okay. I’m not here to judge anybody. We grow out of preferences. Like, for example, my son, he would only eat white food, anything that was bland, beige. That’s the only thing you would eat. Oatmeal, rice, cheese. That’s all you would eat. And it was very difficult. Or chicken. And then more recently. He went away to school, a boarding school, and now he’s in college. He’s trying new flavors because he realized that he artificially limited the kinds of experiences he can have. And this as a parent, delights me. He’s like, I’ve never had that before, Dad, should I try? I’m like, You’re welcome to try it. I’m never going to force you. And he’s invited. And he’s like, okay, I kind of liked it. That was different. And he would try more things. And this is evolution. This is a good thing. But who he is as a highly attentive, empathetic person who has a very clear moral center, should never change.

Chris Do (00:33:46) – If we’ve done our job right, when somebody offers him a political bribe or to break a law.

BrandiSea (00:33:52) – He’s not going to do that.

Chris Do (00:33:54) – That’s the job of parenting.

BrandiSea (00:33:56) – Unless it’s beige. Just kidding.

Chris Do (00:33:57) – Yeah. You know, he’s.

BrandiSea (00:33:59) – Been raised.

Chris Do (00:33:59) – Correctly, right? He’s always going to be polite and kind to people, but he’s also going to be critical in the things that he cares about. Those parts should never change. So when we talk about should we be able to evolve? Yes, absolutely. And if people want to get up on you and like you’re not the same person, you’ve changed my reaction to that. Well, we’re not really friends now, are we? And you really don’t care.

BrandiSea (00:34:21) – And that’s okay.

Chris Do (00:34:22) – And you’re allowed to have your opinion and I’m going to do my thing and you should do your thing. Now, when you talk about this idea, the second point, which is are you being an extrovert where.

BrandiSea (00:34:31) – You want a.

Chris Do (00:34:31) – Little more, you know, all the dials turned up.

Chris Do (00:34:34) – I think in some ways it is true. And I think of it like this when you’re a stage actor, you are going to overact because it’s it’s very hard to see. We’re pretty far away.

BrandiSea (00:34:47) – You’ve got to reach those people in the back.

BrandiSea (00:34:48) – Yeah.

Chris Do (00:34:49) – You know, the cheap seats in the back. So the small expressions or quiet dialogue, nobody can hear. Nobody can see. And so what actors have to do when they are groomed, like for Broadway or theater, they have to change for for television and cinema, because now we have the lens and the director can push way in and up until the point in which they can see your eyelashes and your pores, they have to like not Broadway it up. And we hear those expressions, right? And if you can think about it, then is social media like cinema or is it more like theater? And I think for the most part it’s a little bit more theater than it is cinema because no one’s up on your mug.

BrandiSea (00:35:26) – Interesting that.

Chris Do (00:35:27) – Closely? Yeah, you’re going.

BrandiSea (00:35:29) – To have to.

BrandiSea (00:35:29) – Control that.

Chris Do (00:35:30) – Right? So you might like yellow, you know, and but for, for, for social, you might have to literally tell people yellow is my power, power, color everybody. And you might arrange more objects in the background to carry that color theme through just so people are like, Hey, are you seeing this? You know, are you paying attention because people are not zoomed in on you? Nor they should, nor should they be. And so that’s why we have to be a little bit more like right now, I’m going to be super transparent with you. I don’t always talk like this, but I realized something. If I go on a podcast or a YouTube channel and I’m like, Yeah. So I feel about branding and design and yellow, after a while you’re like, Yeah, I’m tuning out, right? You have to transmit some of the energy, the frequency, the wavelength, yeah. So that it hits the sensor on my camera, uploads it to the internet and then comes back down and then you’re watching it, a compressed edited version so that some of this enthusiasm comes through.

Chris Do (00:36:29) – Now, if I did this all my life, I’d be exhausted and you would be tired of me too.

BrandiSea (00:36:33) – Your significant other would probably be like, tone it down.

Chris Do (00:36:38) – Yeah, like a couple.

BrandiSea (00:36:39) – Of notches, right? Yeah. Yeah.

BrandiSea (00:36:41) – Settle down. Why are you so excited? Yeah.

Chris Do (00:36:43) – So that’s the answer to those two things. Now, let’s talk about the cult of personality, because that’s one of the things that you brought up. And can it. Can you fall into this trap of being narcissistic and egocentric? And most definitely you can, as we’ve seen many people do, and this gets into intentionality. So was it their intention to help people or just to be famous and to be the center of attention? And it’s hard to say what anybody’s intentions are. All we can do is look at what they say and what they do. And is it consistent with someone who is here to serve, who wants to entertain us or teach us something? Or is it here so that you can just follow every little stupid thing that I do Now? I’m not a fan of the vlog format.

Chris Do (00:37:23) – I think it’s a viable thing, but it’s telling people like, my life is so important, isn’t it, that you want to know every little detail about me? They will eventually, but not at the beginning. So I’m more a proponent for let’s create positive transformation in the world. Let’s help people achieve a goal, big or small. And that goal could just be, you know, get my mind off the miserable life I have. Help me feel less anxious or help me figure out how to talk to a client about money, whatever it might be. Or you know what? I just need a distraction for what I’m going through. And can you just show me a cool cooking video with asMr? Yeah, I could do that, you know, and that’s what you do. And then eventually, when people love the content so much, they want to know more about you see the reason why the tabloids exist and they only feature celebrities is because people don’t know about you and they’re not going to care if you went to a wedding or if you stayed out late or might have stepped out on your partner.

Chris Do (00:38:14) – They don’t care because they don’t know who you are. So the first part of this game is to create value for other people. And I think social media is a scorecard. The more value you create for people, the larger your following will be, period. Okay. Now, eventually you’re going to get to.

BrandiSea (00:38:29) – This point.

Chris Do (00:38:30) – When people are like, Hey, bring this into your world a little bit, turn the camera around so we can see what the setup looks like because now we’re super fascinated about you and every little thing that you do, and you can choose to show them nothing, which many people do. You can choose to show them a little or a lot entirely up to you. It depends on the level of relationship and transparency you want to have with your audience.

BrandiSea (00:38:51) – And your own brand voice. What it is that you are you are trying to to be. I’m sure you obviously everybody does knows Garyvee and his whole thing is right. Like document don’t just make things like document stuff so you have content to share.

BrandiSea (00:39:05) – And where’s the balance then between like not just featuring yourself and all of all of the stuff, Just like, here’s me doing this and here’s me doing this, but also documenting so that you have some content to maybe talk over, saying something valuable or, you know, how do you think that it is? What’s a good way to like for people to manage that challenge of not making it all about you? But also, you know, what? If I do want to kind of document how I set up my desk for the day, but I don’t really know how that gives them value.

Chris Do (00:39:38) – Okay, well, everybody’s going to answer this question a little bit differently. This is a highly individual person.

BrandiSea (00:39:43) – But I’m asking you.

Chris Do (00:39:45) – I’ll give you my opinion.

BrandiSea (00:39:46) – So I want your opinion.

Chris Do (00:39:47) – Let’s talk about Garyvee. Now, one thing we all need to know is all strategy is autobiographical. People will tell you to do something because it’s worked for them. The question that you have to ask yourself, am I them? Do I have their resources? Do I have the same ambition? Do I have the same backstory? And if you do, then follow the game plan.

Chris Do (00:40:05) – This is why we all can’t get rich or famous following someone else’s plan because we are not them. Right? So Gary does lots of things, but one of Gary’s superpowers is to be able to say thought provoking things in very few words that are easy to remember. So he said, document don’t create. And it becomes a rallying cry for a lot of people and it gives them permission to create something. Write, document, don’t create because the act of creation is very scary for lots of people. So let’s just take it on its surface level. And what his intention behind that message is. He thinks the world is better and I agree with him. If more creators emerge from the shadows and started to share their voice in their opinion, because we want a plurality of voices and influences and cultural references, not the same old ones, we can agree that that’s a good idea. Plurality diversity are generally good things to have, and if it helps someone overcome the fear of producing something, overcome perfectionism, whatever disorder they suffer from that they can create something.

Chris Do (00:41:00) – This is excellent, but underneath that is a lack of a strategy. So we have to understand, like just because it sounds good and we understand the concept, where this is usually where Gary fails is not a lot of tactics involved here. So we have to be careful that these things don’t become empty. Platitudes like we agree love is good, be kind, be empathetic, empathy wins. Those kinds of things make us feel good about humanity, about ourselves. But how do how does one apply that and how is he applying it? Those are the bigger questions. Now, having said that, let’s talk about this. Okay? If you’re a creative person, you’re like, I don’t want to create content. I definitely don’t want to do vlogs. So let’s apply. By his his expression document don’t create. I tell people this. I’m going to tell you to do something today that’s hyper tactical. And if you do this in a year or two from now, when things start working out for you, you’re going to thank me and you’ll send me $2,000 for telling you to do this today.

Chris Do (00:41:54) – Okay, I’m just going to make it super tactical for you right now. What you’re going to do is you’re going to go on the Internet and you’re gonna buy yourself a hard drive. The bigger, the better. Maybe five terabytes. It costs 100 bucks. It doesn’t have to be a fast drive. And on this drive, what you’re going to do every single day that you’re working on a project, designing a logo or website is you’re going to use one of these these screen capturing programs you can use QuickTime, QuickTime doesn’t give you a lot of options and the files tend to be quite big. You can use something like Screenflow, okay, Screenflow or Camtasia will capture what you’re doing on your desktop and you can specify certain windows so it doesn’t accidentally pick up other things and then just forget about it at the beginning of the day when you’re working record, when you go for lunch, stop, Just keep recording and just save it to that drive and never think about it again. And one day you’re going to wake up and the drive is going to be full by another drive.

Chris Do (00:42:40) – Just another 100 bucks. They’re so cheap to buy today and just keep filling it up. And what I would do is put a little label on it and say January 20th, 23 to May and just label them all and just keep doing that. Right now what’ll happen is 2 or 3 years from now, you’re like, you know, I’m ready to start to make content. Oh, and that project turned out really well. And there was a really valuable lesson because the client said this and this is how he solved it, you know, Oh, shoot, I have to go recreate that whole process. Oh, no, I don’t. Because I was listening to this podcast.

BrandiSea (00:43:09) – And.

Chris Do (00:43:10) – You have it and you’re going to say, Eureka. Now what you can do is give this to an editor and say, Hey, here are the final project files and I’m going to do an intro and I want you to grab that footage, do a time lapse thing, speed it up and cut something together.

Chris Do (00:43:24) – And then I can do voice over and narrate over what I’m doing. And so in this way, you have content for days, for weeks, and you can do this. And this is going to be one of the most.

BrandiSea (00:43:33) – Brilliant, different kind of documenting.

BrandiSea (00:43:35) – Yes, literally.

Chris Do (00:43:36) – I’m going to tell you how to do it, not just like, hey, what does that mean? Because a lot of people here document don’t create and they will document nothing.

BrandiSea (00:43:43) – Or everything.

BrandiSea (00:43:45) – Pretty.

BrandiSea (00:43:45) – Much non strategically. It’s, you know, just going to record all sorts of things and not have any idea what to do with it.

Chris Do (00:43:52) – Yeah, it’s a strange act to turn the camera on yourself. It does feel some level of self conscious. You know, you’re going to be like super self-conscious with this and maybe even narcissistic like, Oh my God, isn’t anything special. I can’t tell you how many times I wish that we had digital cameras and inexpensive media back in the day because there are things that I did in my youth in the late 90s as part of building my company that I wish I was able to document and have better pictures.

Chris Do (00:44:19) – I don’t even have photos of myself. So, you know, there’s like three photos and they’re like captured on film and not on on a digital camera. And so I can’t reliably go back and say, well, this is kind of how it was. One of some of the most popular posts that have are from the early days and how how ghetto my setup was. And people are like, Oh my.

BrandiSea (00:44:37) – God.

Chris Do (00:44:38) – Look, he has a.

BrandiSea (00:44:39) – Phone book.

Chris Do (00:44:40) – What is that?

BrandiSea (00:44:41) – Oh my gosh. But it’s also I love that because it’s not about the tools.

BrandiSea (00:44:45) – Of course.

BrandiSea (00:44:45) – It’s not what you have at your, you.

BrandiSea (00:44:47) – Know. Yeah, but it’s like an antique store.

Chris Do (00:44:48) – In a photo. Right?

BrandiSea (00:44:51) – You know, it’s funny you say that. I just bought a slide that’s on. I bought an old phone back here that I’m going to try.

BrandiSea (00:44:57) – And connect to my.

BrandiSea (00:44:58) – So that I can actually, like.

Chris Do (00:44:59) – Get that.

BrandiSea (00:45:00) – Pick up the phone feeling again. Anyways, that’s neither here nor there.

BrandiSea (00:45:03) – How do you see personal branding evolving in the coming years with with social media, all of the trends? Like what are some things that you see emerging that that creative professionals specifically should be aware of?

Chris Do (00:45:17) – Well, I’ll address the elephant in the room in the age of AI and how sophisticated tools are becoming. It’s it’s forcing all of us to have a much greater philosophical and existential question, which is if I don’t have to do the things I don’t want to do, what am I going to do? And I would suggest that whether you’re a pro or A.I., we cannot ignore that progress is being made. And the thing I like to tell people is the future is undefeated. Do not fight the future because progress happens whether you like it or not, whether it’s kind to you.

BrandiSea (00:45:48) – Or not, whether.

BrandiSea (00:45:49) – You fight it or not.

Chris Do (00:45:50) – Yeah, I heard Daniel Priestley say this. He said that AI undoubtedly will be a multi-billion, maybe $1 trillion economic force. The problem is the the wealth that it creates will not be distributed evenly.

Chris Do (00:46:04) – And so that’s a wake up call. That’s a warning call for all of you. It’s if you want to sit there and complain and complain, then you’ve become a whiner. So if you complain twice, go build a solution for it. Write your congressperson or do a class action lawsuit. Do something. Don’t just sit there and complain. Unfortunately, our community seems to be full of people who just want to complain about stuff and not do anything about it. Or you can do what I’ve done or I’m doing, which is developing AI tools, incorporating in my own workflow and with my team to say, What if you had to use AI to replace yourself? What would you do? And start to get smart with how we use these tools versus getting caught behind it. There’s an expression that says, like when the tide goes out, you see who’s wearing swim trunks and the tide is coming out. You don’t want to be caught without your swim trunks. And it’s an important thing now. There’s one other thing I wanted to tell you about, which is my my perspective on personal branding.

Chris Do (00:46:57) – It is.

BrandiSea (00:46:58) – A hot. That was going to be my last question.

BrandiSea (00:46:59) – Is there anything else I missed?

Chris Do (00:47:02) – Okay.

Chris Do (00:47:02) – So on the newsstand, in a very traditional magazine, Harvard Business Review, is this issue May, June 20th, 2023. Build your personal brand. And it’s like a chair in the spotlight, right? And I bought this issue because I’m talking and teaching about personal branding. I’m like, let me educate myself on what the pros, the educated, what Harvard thinks.

BrandiSea (00:47:23) – Yeah, these Harvard.

Chris Do (00:47:24) – Educated professors and intellectuals are saying.

BrandiSea (00:47:27) – Oh, I’m intrigued.

Chris Do (00:47:29) – Yeah, right. I bought it just for this. It’s a $20 issue. I bought it for 20 bucks just so I can find out what they’re saying. And I got to tell you, I’m disappointed in what it says. And I’m also super excited and thrilled.

BrandiSea (00:47:43) – Do tell.

Chris Do (00:47:43) – Yes.

Chris Do (00:47:45) – The people who wrote the article on page 147, Build Your Personal Brand are talking about building your personal brand in terms of your resume to get a job.

Chris Do (00:47:54) – Super disappointing. So they’re talking about how you describe yourself, how you show up and there are concepts in there that are similar, but their intention behind this is just not what I’m talking about. So let’s take that off at all.

BrandiSea (00:48:06) – Okay?

BrandiSea (00:48:08) – We’re not talking about how to get your LinkedIn resume, and.

BrandiSea (00:48:12) – It feels like that’s what it’s about, like how to get a promotion or something in your. Yeah.

Chris Do (00:48:17) – If anything, if you know anything about me, I’m not really here for people to get a job. This is not what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to empower people to become an entrepreneur, to be a creator, and to have to live life on their own terms, not go work for the man like Jose. And I would always say this like, don’t work for the man. Be the man.

Chris Do (00:48:38) – Be the boss. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what you want now.

BrandiSea (00:48:42) – Yeah. Number two, personal.

Chris Do (00:48:43) – Branding, which I’m not for you either, as there are a lot of people out there who don’t have a personal brand, aren’t influential, don’t create preference, who are talking about teaching other people how to build a personal brand.

Chris Do (00:48:53) – This is nonsense to me. You know, it’s like when somebody’s living in an apartment telling you how they built a how to build a multi apartment empire. It’s like, I don’t know. And here’s what they’re usually saying because they know it’s a hot topic is build your personal brand so that you can market more of your services. So it’s a really thinly disguised thing about marketing. Okay. And we’re talking about mostly marketing practices that most of us despise. I’m not for that either. So when I do my my workshops and my talks on personal branding, I said, you all may be horribly disappointed. As soon as I tell you what we’re going to talk about, because I’m not here to teach you how to build a personal brand so you can market more of your goods. Now, there is an economic upside, as I shared with Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Reynolds and others. But that’s not why we’re doing this. For me, personal branding is about connecting with who you are to get alignment with that.

Chris Do (00:49:48) – Now, Picasso said something like the The meaning of life is to discover your gift. The meaning of life is to discover your gift. And the purpose of life is to give it away. This is, to me, what personal branding is about. And when I when I talk about this, you might say, Oh, this is a little bit different. It’s kind of heating up on an inside here. Okay, So here’s why I say this. Psychologist Carl Jung talks about who we are in ways that are different than the the Freud approach, which is there’s the ego and the ego regulates who we wind up showing up in public. There’s the persona, the person that you you do because you’re trained to be this person so that you can get along and not be a social pariah or an outcast. It’s why you as an adult don’t go around picking your nose and eating your boogers. We’ve learned to keep our mouths shut, to shake your hand a certain way and to wear certain uniforms so that we can be accepted within certain social circles.

Chris Do (00:50:41) – And then there’s this other side to us. What young talks about as the shadow self, the stuff that you know about you, that that carries some shame and some guilt and some pain around a great level of discomfort. You might like comics, you might like some strange foods, but the persona and we can’t be that way. People are going to judge us. We can’t do this. So the ego regulates these two things. The problem is when you show up in life as the persona, the thing that you have to be to be accepted by other people and you keep doing this long enough, you forget who you are. You pretend to be somebody long enough and then you just become that person. So for me, personal.

BrandiSea (00:51:17) – Branding, you become.

BrandiSea (00:51:18) – The mask.

Chris Do (00:51:19) – You become the mass, and there’s no separation between you and the mask and you forget about your own story. So here’s here’s the thing. To me, personal branding is not an act of creation. It’s an act of remembering.

Chris Do (00:51:30) – So in this way, I’m remember and I help you to remember who you are. And to do that, we have to go to the past. We have to figure out your. Origin story, your back story, you’re crossing the threshold moment and the trials and tribulations that you go through and to tap in some of the shadow self to reveal to the world who you are, but mostly to get you to accept who you are. And when you can do that. We go from being a human with a whole to being a whole human, complete in the ugly and the beautiful and the sublime and everything in between. To me, that’s personal branding, and I want to encourage and help people find that voice, to share it with the world and to be proud and say it loud and to be able to create the kind of impact that they were meant to create, to fulfill their purpose. A little bit different approach.

BrandiSea (00:52:15) – Now.

BrandiSea (00:52:16) – I love that. And honestly, like I’m with you on so many levels because when I’m trying to work with creatives that I work with and helping them figure out like their their visual voice, I often ask them like, Well, what do you know? What did you like as a kid? Like, let’s let’s make a scrapbook piece of paper thing.

BrandiSea (00:52:35) – Like let’s look at some of the cartoons you loved. Let’s look at some of the things that like you liked then that you could say now, like, I still love those things. Like those things made me who I am. And, you know, maybe it’s the things like you said, you don’t want to tell people that like, well, I play D&D, but I don’t want any, you know, I don’t want my boss to know because he might look at me differently because I work in this corporate environment. And, you know, it’s the it’s almost like the covering up the tattoo idea. It’s like, this is me, but I can’t really show that off. So I I’m so with you on that. And I think it’s so valuable that you help people do that.

Chris Do (00:53:10) – Do you know Henry Cavill is Henry Cavill?

BrandiSea (00:53:13) – Yeah.

Chris Do (00:53:14) – He’s a darn good looking human being.

BrandiSea (00:53:16) – Some of you might know.

Chris Do (00:53:16) – Him from The Witcher, from playing the role of Superman.

BrandiSea (00:53:20) – Superman.

Chris Do (00:53:21) – He played the role of Superman and also like the bad guy in Mission Impossible opposite Tom Cruise.

Chris Do (00:53:27) – And if you’re a Henry Cavill fan, too, he’s like, you know, I know women who get weak at the knees just mentioning his name. Like.

BrandiSea (00:53:35) – I’m not that person, but I know I know about this.

Chris Do (00:53:39) – Matinee idol kind of thing. Right. And so you think about this.

BrandiSea (00:53:42) – Yeah.

Chris Do (00:53:43) – Did you know that Henry Cavill was a giant nerd?

BrandiSea (00:53:46) – I don’t follow him, so. No.

BrandiSea (00:53:48) – He paints miniatures and he goes crazy about it.

Chris Do (00:53:50) – He said that he almost missed Zack Snyder’s casting call for Superman because he’s in the middle of a Warhammer session. Warhammer is like Dungeons and Dragons, but with space Marines.

BrandiSea (00:53:59) – Oh, I play. I play D&D, so I know the like.

BrandiSea (00:54:03) – And then he’s super passionate.

Chris Do (00:54:04) – About these video games that he’s able to then become the real life or I’m sorry, the theatrical version of the video game. And to me, that’s like we’re living a different era now because could you imagine back in the day, like Tom Cruise or Bruce Willis talking about Dungeons and Dragons and comic books and just geeking out with us over that kind of stuff? The market.

BrandiSea (00:54:25) – Would have turned in.

BrandiSea (00:54:25) – Kelly saying that he reads comic books.

BrandiSea (00:54:28) – Yeah. Do you know what I mean? People are like, Oh, that’s not masculine.

Chris Do (00:54:31) – That’s not cool. But we live in a different era now where the weird things about your childhood is makes you wonderful. As an adult.

BrandiSea (00:54:39) – It’s a good reminder. And I think I think that that’s a really when I was teaching at a local private art college as well, the one that I went to and graduated from, I found myself in a really interesting, really interesting, weird position because when I was going through school, it was all about, you don’t have you don’t have a voice, you don’t get to have a voice. You have to take on the voice of whatever person you’re working for. Nobody cares about what you think. Nobody cares about what your preference is or styles or any of that. That always sat weird with me when I graduated, and so I slowly moved away from that for me. But when I went back to this college to teach at this place, I really wanted to make a point to my students that, like, Look, your voice matters.

BrandiSea (00:55:21) – Like who you are as a creative person actually is valuable, and that’s what’s going to set you apart from the AI programs. They can’t bottle you and sell you. You can only make the things that you are going to create the way you can create them. So I, I resonate with a lot of what you’re saying as well.

Chris Do (00:55:40) – I think for me, personal branding is a combination of my passion for design, for branding, for marketing, and it’s a bit of philosophy and pop psychology. And so I try to differentiate myself. I mean, I’m trying to practice what I preach, right? Not to be different, but to be radically different. So whenever you hear somebody talking about personal branding, ask yourself a couple of questions. Number one, do they have a personal brand that you like and care for and would pay a premium for? And number two, are they really just trying to disguise some kind of marketing scheme so that you can sell more products to more people? And I think there’s a place in the world for that.

Chris Do (00:56:11) – Let’s just not call that personal branding.

BrandiSea (00:56:12) – Yes, I agree. It’s like when social media influencers get big just because they’re teaching you how to be social media influencers. But it’s like this weird circle and nothing’s actually going on there. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for spending all this time with me. Is there anything else, any question you were hoping I would ask that you did not have a chance to answer any points? That you hoped to share with the audience?

BrandiSea (00:56:41) – I don’t.

Chris Do (00:56:41) – Think so. But I’m going to ask you this question. Back at the beginning, we started you asked a multifaceted, rather layered question, and I said I would answer all of them. It’s just going to take time to unpack. I think I’ve answered, but I’m not sure. So if there’s anything left over in that, because your audience will remember like, well, Chris never said this, Brandi, I’m going to throw this back in your court. So. Audience, if I didn’t do my job, it’s Brandi’s fault, not mine.

BrandiSea (00:57:04) – It will be my fault if I forgot because I feel like you not only answered the layers, but you also delved deeply into some really important parts of those things. So I don’t feel like you were at a lack for anything I was hoping for you to answer. So if the audience feels like we missed something, I guess they’ll have to call me out later.

Chris Do (00:57:25) – Guys, Gals.

BrandiSea (00:57:28) – You call Brandi.

BrandiSea (00:57:29) – I’m okay with it. I can. I can take criticism.

BrandiSea (00:57:33) – Because yellows are power. Well, you have to remember that it is.

BrandiSea (00:57:37) – It is. You know, I’ve never had I’ve never had a favorite color, but because rainbow is my favorite color, but yellow is my power color. So.

Chris Do (00:57:45) – And if there are lots and lots of questions that are unresolved that we didn’t get to or something else that we didn’t think to talk about, I would be open to coming back for part two.

BrandiSea (00:57:54) – That would be fantastic. Honestly, Chris, like this has been so much fun. I feel like we are kindred spirits on a lot of these issues and I think that it could be a lot of fun to to do this again.

Chris Do (00:58:03) – I enjoyed it. It was a blast. You bring such positive energy and I love the questions and your knowledge and you know, you rank very high in my book, given the three references that you dropped early on.

Chris Do (00:58:14) – And Paul Rand,

BrandiSea thank you.

Chris Do James Victore and.

BrandiSea (00:58:16) – Certified design geek over here..

Chris Do (00:58:17) – You can’t do better than that. Come on, people.

BrandiSea (00:58:21) – Well, hopefully that’ll make people out there like, go look those, those three up. If they don’t know who they are, I don’t know. I honestly.

Chris Do (00:58:27) – No we’ll cancel You right now.

BrandiSea (00:58:29) – Yeah. We can’t. We can’t be friends. We will not get along if you don’t know those three.

Chris Do (00:58:33) – So

BrandiSea (00:58:34) – Awesome. Well, thank you again so much. And, yeah, let’s plan on doing this again really soon. We’ll do a part two on personal branding or whatever else we’re feeling passionate about. I would absolutely enjoy that.

Chris Do (00:58:44) – Okay, Super. Thank you.

BrandiSea (00:58:48) – Thank you so much for tuning in to Design Speaks.

BrandiSea (00:58:50) – Before you go. I wanted to remind you to leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. If you enjoyed the episode reviews, help the podcast grow and improve and also lets me know what you’re liking so I can bring you more of it. If you know someone who would like this podcast, please share it with them. I’d love to keep growing this community of designers and creatives. If you want to stay up to date with me on social media, you can find me everywhere just by searching at Brandy. See? And don’t forget to check out my website, Brandy Kgw.com for more content and resources related to the topics on the show, plus a link to my course on the strategic process. Thanks again for listening and I’ll catch you on the next episode.

Music* (00:59:37) – Vesperteen

BrandiSea (00:59:51) – Shout out to Colin of Vesperteen for providing the amazing theme music at the beginning and end of the show. You can find him on all major streaming platforms or visit his website at VesperteenMusic.Com. Design Speaks podcast is a project of BrandiSea Designs and is recorded in the shadow of the watermelon pnk Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque, New Mexico.