670 Building an Influential Personal Brand with Rory Vaden

"LACK OF REVENUE IS NOT YOUR GREATEST PROBLEM; A LACK OF REPUTATION IS." - RORY VADEN There is something incredibly important in life that I don't hear enough people talking about. It's called your personal brand and it goes far beyond your career. I started learning about personal branding over 10 years ago when I got into the entrepreneurial world. I noticed a big difference between some people's brands and others. So I started taking notes. Today, I credit a huge part of my success, both personally and professionally, to the personal brand I've created. It's my reputation and much more. There's no one I trust more to teach on this topic than my good friend Rory Vaden. Rory and I met years ago and would meet up every once in a while at different events. But it wasn't until I felt the need to call him a couple of months ago that I truly learned about Rory's genius. I was feeling a little uneasy about what to do next with my personal brand and business. I knew I needed to get an outside set of expert eyes on it. So I called Rory out of the blue and asked if I could come meet him to talk about it. Rory not only gave me two days of his time and hosted me at his house, he gave me such valuable insight into my business and brand that I am shifting my entire focus as a result. I want to share this same information and insight with as many people as possible, so Rory flew out to record a podcast episode all about how he thinks about branding (and what he helps his clients do). He even offered free brand strategy calls to any School of Greatness podcast listeners if you are interested in becoming an influential personal brand. This conversation is a goldmine, and I can't wait for you to take tons of notes on it in Episode 670. In this episode you will learn: What reputation actually is (Rory's definition) Why a lack of revenue is not your greatest problem Rory's reputation formula to create rock solid results How to become unstoppable through your branding What your brand DNA is made of How to know if a decision is aligned with your ethics What one of the biggest lures of compromise is The DARES test to put all your business ideas through How to figure out the actual business you are in Plus much more... Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rory Vaden?

  This is episode number 670 with New York Times bestselling author Rory Vaden.

• 0:08Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:34Lewis Howes?

  Peter Drucker said, "The best way to predict the future is to create it." Welcome to the podcast. You have the ability and the power to create your future the way you want it. Over the last 10 years, I've been building my personal brand in such a way so that I can have the life that I want right now. I continue to develop it, to create it, to shape it, to mold it, to reinvent it. Every single month, year, and every time there's a transition in my life, I'm doing it not on accident, but on purpose. And I'm excited about this episode because I went through an experience with Rory for a couple of days

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  that changed the way I think about my own brand, my personal brand, my business, the revenue I'm bringing in, the type of people I want to work with, everything that I think about with my business was changed from this two-day experience. And for those who don't know, Rory Vaden is a New York Times bestselling author. He is an internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, one of the world's leading experts on self-discipline and overcoming procrastination and multiplying your time. He's got incredible TED Talk online about multiplying time. He's been featured in press all over the world. And he was in the World Championships of Public Speaking. He's a powerful voice and a powerful leader.

• 1:54Lewis Howes?

  And in this episode, we talk about the difference between a mission-driven brand and a money-driven brand. We talk about the right questions to ask yourself to get clarity on your purpose, how to build an incredible reputation, how to know if a business decision is aligned with your ethics, and also the one test to put all of your new product ideas through. We also dive into exactly what I went over with Rory for two days when I called him up. And said, I need your help in helping me take my brand to another level. And really analyzing a lot of things that we've been working on again, as a brand that gets a ton of opportunities. I felt like I needed clarity on what the best ones were for me moving forward.

• 2:36Lewis Howes?

  So we talk about building powerful revenue streams. We talk about dares, which is really the thing that you should be focused on if you want to launch any product. We talked about the brand helix, brand DNA, yes is a no list, brand mantra, why a personal brand is more powerful than a company brand. So many things. I'm excited about this and he's actually doing a free call for people that want to get clear on building their personal brand. If you go to lewishouse.com/brandcall, you can sign up for a free call right now and we'll talk more about that throughout the episode. But in the meantime, want to give a shout out to our fan of the week. This is from Marissa Tims who says,

• 3:18Lewis Howes?

  Lewis has the kind of podcast that has inspired me to begin the process of creating my own. I've dreamed of interviewing people who inspire me for years and a series of events that I couldn't have predicted even six months ago had led me to this point. I've finally come to realize my internal transformation must begin to match my outer existence. So stay tuned. So Marissa is talking about her internal transformation. We're all on a path in our life. We all have the opportunity to grow. The best way to grow is internally. And when I continue to focus on internal growth, that's when I see the external growth, something to keep you reminded of as you go throughout your day today.

• 4:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got my dear friend Rory Baden in the house. Good to see you, buddy. Hey, man. All the way from Nashville. Welcome to the studio. Excited about this. A few months back, I called you because I felt like I was at a crossroads in my brand and in my business. And for whatever reason, I said, I think Rory can help me. And you've done so much work over the last fifteen years in multiple different areas of business. From live events, door-to-door sales, to building a bigger brand, to helping influencers, to writing New York Times bestselling books. You've done it all. You've done a lot of different things in terms of building a personal brand, building a company, and you've helped a lot of people do that.

• 4:52Lewis Howes?

  And I just said, for some reason, I think you can help me kind of take my vision to a new level and gain clarity for my personal brand, my level of reach and influence that I want to take to the next level. And I felt like I had done a pretty good job up to this point, but just felt like I needed someone to help give clarity with everything happening in my head. So I called you up, I went to Nashville, I think a week or two later, brought Caesar, Matt, and we spent two days diving into, which was one of the most powerful experiences of my professional life, I would say. Was diving in and gaining clarity on who I am, the brand I'm building, where I'm headed, and the business that I'm in. And we learned some incredible things.

• 5:36Lewis Howes?

  And so I wanted to dive into what we learned and really how anyone, if you have a brand right now, a personal brand that you're looking to build, and you're looking to leverage your reach to generating more revenue and more impact, to helping everyone listening who wants to build a personal brand, how to make it clear decisions so that it's much easier in the process. So that's what I wanted to do today, is to kind of go over some things that we went over in two days in an hour and help people just have incredible results.

• 6:09Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 6:10Lewis Howes?

  Personal brand.

• 6:11Rory Vaden?

  Well, I love it. And you, you were doing more than an okay job. You were doing an amazing job.

• 6:14Lewis Howes?

  Thank you.

• 6:15Rory Vaden?

  And I have to say, man, it's such an honor to get that phone call from you because I, I mean, I know you could have called anybody.

• 6:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:22Rory Vaden?

  And when you called me and AJ and it was late at night and it was like... I mean, I probably hadn't talked to you in a year.

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  It's been that long?

• 6:29Rory Vaden?

  It had been, it had been, it had been a minute.

• 6:31Lewis Howes?

  Some emails and texts.

• 6:33Rory Vaden?

  But it was like, and it was late at night, I was like,

• 6:35Lewis Howes?

  What's going on?

• 6:36Rory Vaden?

  What's, what's up? Yeah, like, and then, and then you're like, hey, I, I think, I think you guys, I think you are the one that can help me with this.

• 6:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:43Rory Vaden?

  So, yeah, let's, whatever you want to talk about, man, let's, let's do it.

• 6:46Lewis Howes?

  It was very powerful and, and it's been a lot to reflect on. When was it, like six weeks ago, maybe almost two months ago?

• 6:51Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, I mean, it's been a, been a few weeks.

• 6:53Lewis Howes?

  And it's been a lot to reflect on. We're still implementing a lot of the things that you share with us. But I wanted to break down a rough overview of some of the things that we went over in two days and then kind of share with people what they can do at home to really get clear on how they're going to build their own celebrity influential personal brand.

• 7:10Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 7:11Lewis Howes?

  And some of the things that we talked about, which you've designed and developed, which I think is really cool, is, and, and correct me if these names are wrong, figuring out your brand DNA. So, and an overview of that is finding your uniqueness and exploiting it in the service of others, which is not your quote.

• 7:27Rory Vaden?

  Quote from Larry Wingate, yeah.

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  Larry Wingate. So first off, discovering what your brand DNA is, essentially who you are.

• 7:33Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 7:33Lewis Howes?

  Who you're serving and how you're going to serve them. And then going into the brand helix, which for me was huge. And we'll talk about the brand helix in a minute.

• 7:40Rory Vaden?

  Yep.

• 7:41Lewis Howes?

  Then figuring out what business you are actually in. We did a session with you and a lot of these were discussions where you just asked us questions.

• 7:49Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  So what are all the revenue streams that you have? And I think we had like seven or eight main revenue streams that we counted. And we thought we were in one business, but based on revenue streams, you were like, well, actually you're in this business. And you're moving into this business.

• 8:05Rory Vaden?

  Which we were most surprised by.

• 8:06Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. It's crazy.

• 8:07Rory Vaden?

  Neither one of us, so we'll talk about how to know what business you're really in.

• 8:11Lewis Howes?

  What business you're really in, which is going to be helpful for the future of your brand. Creating your yes or and no list, which has been a game changer for me because I said yes to so many things. Cause I felt like, well, there's great money here, there's great money here, there's great opportunity here. But it hurts the brand in certain things and it hurts your time. You can't multiply time when you say yes to these things. We'll talk about that. Dares, which you haven't talked about publicly yet, which I'm excited to share.

• 8:35Rory Vaden?

  Yes, never shared that publicly.

• 8:37Lewis Howes?

  Dare.

• 8:38Rory Vaden?

  Concept of dares.

• 8:38Lewis Howes?

  And dares is something we still have on our wall that we wrote down because it's the thing we think about.

• 8:43Rory Vaden?

  I saw it in Matt's office when I walked in.

• 8:45Lewis Howes?

  It's the thing that we think about when creating anything now. Does it have dares?

• 8:50Rory Vaden?

  These components.

• 8:50Lewis Howes?

  All, was that five components?

• 8:52Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 8:52Lewis Howes?

  Five components when launching any product or service. It must have the dares, so make sure you listen to that. Your brand mantra, talking about your reputation, how to build reputation. We talked about a lot of other things, but I think these are some of the things we'll cover today.

• 9:07Rory Vaden?

  Well, and starting with reputation and just what is personal branding, I think is huge because. So Brand Builders Group, we don't brand companies. We brand people. And we believe that the future of branding is not about companies. It's about individual people and it's all based on your personal reputation. And if you think about it, you give me a phone call. I don't just take a phone call from anybody at nine forty-five on a whatever night it was. But it's like, when I see Lewis Howes mobile, Lewis must need something, right? Pick it up. And that is based on your reputation.

• 9:47Rory Vaden?

  And so when we think about personal branding, I think a lot of times our mind goes to, oh, my logo, my website. Those things are important, but the essence of a personal brand starts with a person's reputation. And you can design a logo in a week. It takes years to build what we call a rock solid reputation.

• 10:09Lewis Howes?

  And how long does it take to ruin a reputation?

• 10:12Rory Vaden?

  I mean, a reputation can be ruined in minutes.

• 10:15Lewis Howes?

  Crazy, right?

• 10:16Rory Vaden?

  One, it can be ruined in minutes. It can, one bad decision and you, there's many examples of this, right? I think one reason I feel drawn to you, I like just, I feel like God draws me to you. Is because I believe you're going to become one of the biggest celebrities of our time. And I know that you're gonna have a lot coming at you. And a lot of people coming to you, lots of opportunities and no shortage of temptation in any variety of fashions. And I know your heart about what your reputation is and how you've built it. And I wanna be somebody that is like a bumper lane for you to help do that. And so, when you think of reputation too, as it relates to our business,

• 10:57Rory Vaden?

  one of the things that AJ and I realized, so AJ is my wife and my business partner. She's co-founder of Brand Builders Group. And we realized that for a company, especially a small company, but even for big companies, a lack of revenue is what we all think about, is what we all talk about. Like, oh, we need more revenue, we need more money. But a lack of revenue is not your greatest problem. Lack of reputation is your greatest problem.

• 11:25Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 11:27Rory Vaden?

  Because reputation precedes revenue. Reputation is about trust, it's about faith, it's about conviction, it's about belief. So we created something called the Reputation Formula, which I haven't shared this with you, so I'm interested to get your thoughts. But basically, the Reputation Formula works like this. Results times reach equals reputation. Results times reach equals reputation. So your results are the results you've delivered in your life, the results you've accumulated or accomplished for yourself, but also the results you've accomplished for your clients. It's the things that you have done or that you've helped people do.

• 12:11Rory Vaden?

  Now, results can be positive or negative.

• 12:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, if you have no results and no following, then your reputation is bad.

• 12:18Rory Vaden?

  Is bad, yeah.

• 12:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:19Rory Vaden?

  But you can also have a negative reputation. So the Reputation Formula isn't about positive or negative, because the results part can be positive or negative. Now, the reach part can't be negative, but it can be zero. Even if you have the greatest results, if you have the world's best widget, or the best company, or you're the smartest person ever, those are great results, but if your reach is zero... Then your reputation is still zero. Because if people don't know about you, they can't do business with you. So if you have great results and a lot of reach, that's Mother Teresa, right? She's well-respected for delivering this service to people. Now, if you have horrible results and a lot of reach,

• 13:03Rory Vaden?

  you're Osama bin Laden, right? You did something horrible and a lot of people knew about it. And that's a very bad reputation. So it can be positive or negative, but at the end of the day, the size of the reputation is a result of the size of the result times the reach.

• 13:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:20Rory Vaden?

  And so that informs your personal brand, which reputation precedes revenue. So that informs your ability, dictates your ability really, that what your personal brand is.

• 13:34Lewis Howes?

  So should people be focusing on revenue or reputation first?

• 13:38Rory Vaden?

  People should absolutely 100% be focused on reputation first.

• 13:42Lewis Howes?

  Reputation. And reputation means doing something good, adding value, and building an audience.

• 13:47Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, well, building the audience, I think, is separate. Okay, so if you just... Doing something good is the results. And it's years, and you have to do it right. Here's the thing. Building a business, my personal opinion, building a business is not nearly as valuable as building a reputation. You can build a business. You can generate lots of revenues. There's lots of business models you can get in. You can do...

• 14:12Lewis Howes?

  Build an Amazon business.

• 14:13Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, whatever.

• 14:15Lewis Howes?

  Hair salon, you can do anything.

• 14:16Rory Vaden?

  And there's ways you can make money, right? Like, I could probably go open a check into cash, like a payday loan thing, and make a lot of money. I'm personally not gonna do that. It's not bad if you are. If that's your thing, fine. But for me, and for all of us, and I think this is the point, is you gotta define in your life what you're gonna say yes to and what you're gonna say no to. What is inbounds and what is out of bounds? What are the things that you consider acceptable, that you want your reputation associated with? And what are the things that you don't? And that is really, really important. And so you have to make that decision that your reputation matters more. Your reputation matters more than money, more than revenue. It matters more than...

• 15:02Rory Vaden?

  Refunding that customer, right? Like if the customer is upset, refund them the money if it's cost. Your reputation is so much more valuable than one customer. And I think, again, one of the reasons I'm drawn to you and why you call and I answer and you say, "Hey, I need help," and I'm there is because you've done that, Lewis. And I think when people listen to this show, they never get the sense, "Oh, Lewis is after my money."

• 15:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:30Rory Vaden?

  They never get that sense. They only get a sense of Lewis is trying to help people. He's doing good in the world. He's trying to learn.

• 15:38Lewis Howes?

  And that builds your reach and builds results, which increases reputation.

• 15:42Rory Vaden?

  Which eventually leads to revenue, right? Here we are in your place in the Hollywood Hills.

• 15:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right.

• 15:47Rory Vaden?

  Like, you're doing all right for yourself, and that's great. And that's what I think a lot of people don't understand, too, is if you focus on reputation, revenue shows up as a byproduct. But if you focus on just profit, then sometimes people kind of get hurt along the way.

• 16:08Lewis Howes?

  Because they're focusing all their decisions on making money.

• 16:10Rory Vaden?

  Just money.

• 16:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:11Rory Vaden?

  And it's like, doesn't matter. And that's one of the things I love about the year.

• 16:14Lewis Howes?

  I make a lot of decisions that lose me a lot of money, but build reputation.

• 16:19Rory Vaden?

  Yes.

• 16:19Lewis Howes?

  Like doing an event in Columbus, Ohio.

• 16:22Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 16:23Lewis Howes?

  The first two years, we lost money. But I wanted to add value, give back, do something meaningful for me as well as my audience. And I think, long-term, it'll pay off into bigger revenue than, "Let me do an event in Los Angeles or New York. I'm going to get the most people to show up and make more money right away."

• 16:41Rory Vaden?

  Right.

• 16:41Lewis Howes?

  I think that's the key. When I launched the podcast, I said for the first year, we're not going to do any sponsorships. We're not going to try to make money.

• 16:48Rory Vaden?

  Right.

• 16:49Lewis Howes?

  We're just going to add value and continue to give good content.

• 16:52Rory Vaden?

  And you say no to certain sponsors.

• 16:54Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. I say no to lots of sponsors.

• 16:55Rory Vaden?

  You say no to all sorts of sponsors because you've defined, look, like, these are things I don't believe in.

• 17:00Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 17:00Rory Vaden?

  Even if they're paying, it's like, and I think that's really huge.

• 17:04Lewis Howes?

  So the business could be making more money, but we choose not to because it doesn't align to our brand DNA.

• 17:09Rory Vaden?

  Right.

• 17:10Lewis Howes?

  And I think that's something that everyone should get clear on is, what is your uniqueness? And you continue to talk about that with a lot of people that you work with in the Brand Builders Group, is figuring out Who are you essentially? What is your uniqueness?

• 17:22Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 17:22Lewis Howes?

  How can you then exploit that to people? Because your uniqueness is probably more important than anything else.

• 17:29Rory Vaden?

  Right.

• 17:29Lewis Howes?

  Figuring out how unique you are is your identity. And that's what's going to attract the right customers and the right opportunities.

• 17:36Rory Vaden?

  Absolutely. And I want to make sure and give a shout out to Larry Winget. So he knows like he said this and the moment I heard it, I was like, that's one of the most brilliant things I've ever heard. He said, the key is find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others. And I was like, whoo, that's strong, man. And there's people that do that. You are somebody who does that. And I think the challenge is getting clear on what makes you unique? What makes you special? What makes you different? And here's another mutual friend of ours, you know, Sally Hogshead.

• 18:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, she's great.

• 18:10Rory Vaden?

  Fascinate and.

• 18:11Lewis Howes?

  Difference better than better.

• 18:12Rory Vaden?

  Different is better than better.

• 18:15Lewis Howes?

  I've remembered that since the moment she said it on a stage like eight years ago.

• 18:18Rory Vaden?

  I was just with, I just shared the stage with her like a few days ago. I mean.

• 18:21Lewis Howes?

  And I say that all the time.

• 18:23Rory Vaden?

  Different is better than better. And the other thing is what I love about, you know, she teaches people how to be fascinating. And what I love about what she says is it's, it's not that you learn how to become fascinating. It's that you learn how to become more of yourself.

• 18:35Lewis Howes?

  Ah.

• 18:35Rory Vaden?

  And that is like, that's it, man. Like when you are doing you, you're uncopyable.

• 18:42Lewis Howes?

  That's it. It's funny, I heard, I was watching an interview of The Rock yesterday with Jamie Foxx. And he said, when he got into the movie business, his management team was like, you need to lose weight. You need to start acting a different way. You need to start.

• 18:55Rory Vaden?

  Really?

• 18:56Lewis Howes?

  Softer, like all these things. And he lost all this weight, got skinny, like looked really weird. And then he fired them. He said, you know what? If I'm going to do this business, I'm going to do it my way, which is like becoming more of me. Like amplifying The Rock-ness. Like they told him not to use The Rock, they'd use Dwayne Johnson is his name. He's like, you know what? I'm going back to who I am, making it about the people. Getting bigger and stronger, like whatever it is, is his thing.

• 19:23Rory Vaden?

  Look how that's worked out.

• 19:24Lewis Howes?

  And today he just posted that he was the highest paid actor of all time in one year. I think that was right. It was at the highest paid actor, like 112 million in one year.

• 19:36Rory Vaden?

  Dear Lord.

• 19:37Lewis Howes?

  Of all time, the greatest actors ever.

• 19:42Lewis Howes?

  He is the highest paid.

• 19:43Rory Vaden?

  Otherwise, he would have been like everybody else and he would have, you know.

• 19:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, maybe he would have done okay.

• 19:46Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 19:47Lewis Howes?

  But he wouldn't have been different.

• 19:49Rory Vaden?

  It's celebrating what makes you especially you. And that's what people are drawn to. People know, and you know, like I know when I see you, you're always, you're like always in a T-shirt and you always, we wear the same cologne. That's like one thing I always know, it's good. But you are you. And when people see me, it's like, I'm in a pocket square and I have a flower. It's because I was raised by a single mom who sold Mary Kay and like, I get manicures and pedicures. I do, like it's who.

• 20:19Lewis Howes?

  It's your style, yeah.

• 20:19Rory Vaden?

  It's who I am. It's just who I am. And I think that's what's amazing is, and, and here's the challenge too. So there is a part of this that is invigorating to your spirit. There's also a part of this that is dominating as a business strategy. Because the challenge today is noise.

• 20:41Lewis Howes?

  So much noise, so much content. Everyone's posting every day, content.

• 20:48Rory Vaden?

  That's it. How do you break through the noise? Because there's always somebody that's gonna be smarter than you. There's always someone who's funnier than you.

• 20:55Lewis Howes?

  Better looking.

• 20:56Rory Vaden?

  Better looking, better connected, has more money to, to do whatever. And I think the thing that you see is that when a celebrity grows, it's because they're being raw and authentic and it's themself. And that is what people are drawn to because we live in this world of tremendous fakeness. We have these masks and we, we wear masks and we do it because we're completely insecure.

• 21:24Lewis Howes?

  Trying to fit in.

• 21:25Rory Vaden?

  We're trying to fit in. We're totally insecure and like, right, you know.

• 21:28Lewis Howes?

  And a personal brand should be about standing out.

• 21:30Rory Vaden?

  Yes.

• 21:31Lewis Howes?

  Not fitting in, it should be about how do you stand out more?

• 21:33Rory Vaden?

  Yes.

• 21:34Lewis Howes?

  And you talk about this in the brand helix. Can you break it down and if you wanna draw for yourself?

• 21:38Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, yeah, so I'll kinda like try to, so draw it out.

• 21:41Lewis Howes?

  So explain it.

• 21:42Rory Vaden?

  If you think about brand DNA, right? So we kinda thought of like a chromosome. These aren't the only, these aren't like the only questions. These are just questions really that mentors, my mentors asked me, that helped me kinda get clear and, and I always think about. And I think these are questions, anybody listening that says, okay, I have a personal brand, I wanna grow it, or I wanna build a personal brand, or you're an executive of a company or something and it's like, okay, I wanna, I wanna use my brand to grow my business. You ask yourselves these questions. And so the first question where all personal branding starts is just getting clear on this. And this is from my man David Avrin. And David Avrin mentored me from like the time I was super young.

• 22:25Rory Vaden?

  And he said, Rory, you have to get crystal clear on what problem do you solve? What problem do you solve? The way that Dave said it is he said, to what question are you the answer? And until you get clear on the problem you solve, you get absorbed by the noise because you're out there talking about, we do this and we do that and we do this. But the moment you start promoting the problem, promoting the questions, that is when people start to pay attention because now it's like, whoa, this person can help me solve a problem. So you have to get really clear on like, what problem do you solve?

• 23:07Rory Vaden?

  The next question is, what are you passionate about? And there's two parts of this sort of brand helix. So the top, the top part here, this is all sort of external facing. So this is like how you appear or occur in the world. And then this bottom part is internal. So this is more like your internal monologue, like your psychographics. And these correspond with each other. So the problem I solve, because there may be many problems you solve, right? Like you can teach people how to do all sorts of different stuff.

• 23:41Lewis Howes?

  But what's the thing you're passionate about as well? And when they intersect, that's when it's a sweet spot.

• 23:46Rory Vaden?

  Bingo. Right. Yeah. So that's, that's what we're looking for is the intersection of the external sort of who you were designed, or who the, who the world needs you to be and who you were designed to be. Who you love being. So what problem do I solve? The next thing is sort of what am I perceived?

• 24:09Rory Vaden?

  As an expert on. And expertise is interesting because expertise is really more about perception.

• 24:20Lewis Howes?

  Right. What do people think I'm an expert at?

• 24:22Rory Vaden?

  Yes. Like you introduced me, I think you said, Roy's a New York Times bestselling author, right? Why do you choose to say that? Because people hear that and they go, ah, expert, credible. That's something that you get and there's a certain type of person. It takes a lot of work to get that. So there's these triggers that we kind of think through. We walk people through this actually is what are the triggers of what make you perceived as an expert? And one of the exercises we take people through, I actually don't think we did this with you, but is we write your bio. And then we do what's called your future bio.

• 24:55Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, interesting. I like that.

• 24:56Rory Vaden?

  And so we think, we ask the question, five years from now, what does your bio need to be? And that's actually how we met.

• 25:06Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 25:06Rory Vaden?

  Because you and I met before the launch of School of Greatness, before the first book. And you were getting ready for your launch and that's, you know, I think you'd had me on the show once. And then we were kind of talking about your book launch and stuff. But that is who you want to be. And you always said, you were like, I'm going to be a New York Times bestselling author.

• 25:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:23Rory Vaden?

  And now we know, do you mind me sharing, have you shared the hundred million?

• 25:26Lewis Howes?

  People know, yeah, yeah, but you can share it.

• 25:28Rory Vaden?

  Okay, so for those of you listening and watching.

• 25:32Lewis Howes?

  People have heard in the past, yeah.

• 25:33Rory Vaden?

  That one of the things that we got crystal clear on when, when you and I spent two days together and AJ and Matt, we all, four of us were there, was that the School of Greatness podcast is going to get a hundred million downloads.

• 25:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:46Rory Vaden?

  A hundred million. And when you get to a hundred million, like you're going to be that person. And again, part of what I loved this for you was, you know, we talk about what business are you in? How do you make money and all that sort of stuff? But I kind of knew that we, that we hit it for you when you were like, I don't care about the money. If we hit a hundred million downloads. It'll work out. I want to impact a hundred million lives.

• 26:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:15Rory Vaden?

  And that was what you came alive. Like you said it and you came alive.

• 26:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:20Rory Vaden?

  Way more than money would ever inspire you. And so I know that's part of your future bio.

• 26:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:26Rory Vaden?

  Is a hundred million downloads.

• 26:27Lewis Howes?

  We're close.

• 26:28Rory Vaden?

  I know.

• 26:28Lewis Howes?

  We're getting close, man. We're at seventy plus million right now.

• 26:31Rory Vaden?

  I mean, you're gonna hit a hundred million and then it's gonna be...

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  And then the goal is a hundred million a year.

• 26:35Rory Vaden?

  In a year.

• 26:35Lewis Howes?

  And then a hundred million a month. A hundred million a week.

• 26:38Rory Vaden?

  A hundred million in a week.

• 26:39Lewis Howes?

  That's gonna be a lot.

• 26:40Rory Vaden?

  It's huge. That's a lot.

• 26:41Lewis Howes?

  It's a lot. It takes some time.

• 26:43Rory Vaden?

  But you're building an audience. And here's the thing. This is worth noting. We'll come back to the helix, but this is all related. Because you've spent such a long time building a great reputation. Reputation doesn't grow linearly. It grows exponentially. And so it's a slow... Yeah, it's a hockey stick. It's slow, but man, you're hitting that curve, right? And we'll talk about the yes/no list with you. And one of the things we decided with you, we realized that there's some things you've been doing that you need to let go of because you're no longer competing with people who do that. You're competing with Oprah. And you're competing with Ellen. And you're competing with Rock. I mean, that's what...

• 27:25Lewis Howes?

  That's what I want to be stepping into.

• 27:26Rory Vaden?

  That's what you're stepping into. That's part of the Lewis Howes future bio. So anyways, that's what... You know, what are you the expert on? And, you know, some people, they're...

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  What's the problem you're solving? I think it's important for people to get clear on the exact problem because there's lots of problems that I could be solving as well.

• 27:43Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 27:43Lewis Howes?

  And you're gonna be solving multiple problems as well. But what's the number one problem that you're gonna focus on? And then there's other things you'll be solving along the way. But focusing on the number one thing is key.

• 27:54Rory Vaden?

  So that also helps you define what we call your core audience target. Once you're clear on the problem, you know exactly who you're going after.

• 28:03Lewis Howes?

  Find those people with that problem.

• 28:04Rory Vaden?

  Yes.

• 28:05Lewis Howes?

  That's it. You don't have to market to everyone anymore.

• 28:07Rory Vaden?

  Yes, which is what we do. We spend all sorts of money on silly stuff. We don't track it. And when you go after a core target audience...

• 28:15Lewis Howes?

  You build a community of people too.

• 28:17Rory Vaden?

  You do.

• 28:18Lewis Howes?

  Who are like raving fans because they all have like the same beliefs. Right?

• 28:23Rory Vaden?

  They all share it.

• 28:23Lewis Howes?

  They all share it.

• 28:24Rory Vaden?

  And you do hit, it's like a target. That's why we use core target audience because you're aiming at the bull's eye. Now, you're going to impact other people also. You're going to reach some other people. But if you don't know where the bull's eye is, you're just throwing darts with your eyes closed.

• 28:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:39Rory Vaden?

  Right? So you have to have that core and all of that's, you know, kind of connected to the brand helix.

• 28:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:44Rory Vaden?

  So then the next one, so the corresponding internal part here is, and this is a Dave, Dave Avrind question. As he used to ask me, he'd say, Rory, what have you earned the right to talk about? So this is related to expertise. Expertise is external. It's perceived. But this question is more about what have you actually done?

• 29:06Lewis Howes?

  What have you done? So I've written in your time bestselling book. So you've got the credibility to talk about.

• 29:11Rory Vaden?

  Yes.

• 29:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. You've built a podcast.

• 29:13Rory Vaden?

  You could talk about that. You're in shape. You could talk about that, right? Like you could do, and this was your problem, which we need to talk to when we get about the yes, no list, is the more successful you become.

• 29:23Lewis Howes?

  You can talk about lots of stuff.

• 29:23Rory Vaden?

  More stuff, there's lots of stuff to talk about. And that's why getting centered and being clear becomes, the more well-known you become, the more important it is to be clear on this stuff.

• 29:35Lewis Howes?

  So important.

• 29:35Rory Vaden?

  Because as your star like rises, there's just more opportunity for distraction and for dilution in terms of where you spend your time.

• 29:45Lewis Howes?

  I think Warren Buffett was the one who said, the difference between the successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no more than anyone else or something like that. I don't know if that was exactly.

• 29:57Rory Vaden?

  Well, and, and no, we can, but this is good to talk about the yes, no list. Because, so, so we did this. We went through with you and Matt and we made it. It's not a complicated exercise.

• 30:06Lewis Howes?

  Chart, yes and no.

• 30:08Rory Vaden?

  Yes, no, but.

• 30:09Lewis Howes?

  What do we say yes to? What do we say no to?

• 30:11Rory Vaden?

  It's not just what do you say yes to and what you say no to. It's what are the characteristics of things you say yes to? And what are the characteristics of things you say no to?

• 30:20Lewis Howes?

  For example?

• 30:21Rory Vaden?

  For example, you want to talk about yours?

• 30:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I can give a few.

• 30:24Rory Vaden?

  Okay.

• 30:25Lewis Howes?

  Give a few of the high level ones.

• 30:26Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, so let's talk about the no's first because we'll talk about the yeses and we can share the dares.

• 30:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:30Rory Vaden?

  I think that'd be cool for people.

• 30:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:32Rory Vaden?

  So one of the things we got clear on for you is that anything.

• 30:38Rory Vaden?

  That infomarketers do.

• 30:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:42Rory Vaden?

  Generally speaking, is gonna be a no.

• 30:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Rory Vaden?

  For you moving forward.

• 30:46Lewis Howes?

  Yes, moving forward, yeah.

• 30:47Rory Vaden?

  Because when we looked at the future of the Lewis Howes brand. We said Lewis Howes isn't competing with the world of the infomarketers. Nothing wrong with the world of infomarketers. Brand Builders Group lives in that space, right? And we follow a lot of people in that space and we promote a lot of people in that space. But, once we got clear that the podcast is the focus of your brand and that is all in for the future. Then we realized, okay, you're gonna not do some of the things that those folks do.

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 31:21Rory Vaden?

  And that.

• 31:21Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't mean not applying online marketing strategies to my business.

• 31:25Rory Vaden?

  Correct.

• 31:26Lewis Howes?

  But it's not doing what other infomarketers are doing to be well-known infomarketers.

• 31:31Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 31:31Lewis Howes?

  Infomarketers.

• 31:32Rory Vaden?

  And there's certain things, there's maybe certain tactics that you won't do.

• 31:36Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 31:37Rory Vaden?

  Because they don't fit with just the direction of your brand.

• 31:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:40Rory Vaden?

  And that's okay. My job is never to make a judgment on what people decide to do or not do. It's just to help them get clear on going, okay, these kinds of tactics fit, these kinds don't. And we have to make, and we're gonna make a decision based on the characteristics on our no list. Of what we do and don't do. Here's another diagram, so we created this recently and I haven't shown you this, so this is interesting. So this is a Venn diagram, I think it's called a Venn diagram, it's three circles. There's these three circles, there's marketing that works. So there's principles of marketing that works.

• 32:21Rory Vaden?

  Then there is marketing that's ethical.

• 32:28Rory Vaden?

  And then, there is marketing.

• 32:31Rory Vaden?

  That is aligned.

• 32:33Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 32:34Rory Vaden?

  And so there's marketing tactics that work. So, marketing that works. There's things you can do with marketing that works, right? You can tell people, "We only have 10 left."

• 32:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:47Rory Vaden?

  In reality, you have...

• 32:48Lewis Howes?

  It's unlimited.

• 32:49Rory Vaden?

  It's unlimited.

• 32:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:50Rory Vaden?

  So, you have to reconcile that with marketing that is ethical.

• 32:56Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:56Rory Vaden?

  Now, for you, you might not have an ethical problem with that. And if you don't, fine, that's your thing, right? Like, this is not an ethics course. But for your brand, you gotta draw a line and say, "I will do this, I won't do that." So you gotta reconcile that with what's ethical. But then there's this whole other piece, which is marketing that is aligned with my uniqueness, with my future, with my mission. And so, this is where you wanna live.

• 33:22Lewis Howes?

  Sweet spot.

• 33:22Rory Vaden?

  Right in the sweet spot. Because you need to do stuff that works. And they're not huge decisions.

• 33:26Lewis Howes?

  Right, little stuff.

• 33:27Rory Vaden?

  They're small decisions. That decision where you say, "I will sacrifice revenue before I sacrifice my reputation." That is why Lewis Howes is gonna be 100 million downloads, dude.

• 33:39Lewis Howes?

  It's hard, though, sometimes.

• 33:40Rory Vaden?

  It's so hard. And let's talk about the science of making those decisions. So, how do you know? The only way you know is to feel it.

• 33:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 33:51Rory Vaden?

  And you do that. And I think people sense it. What happens is when you start to make one compromise, then it's easier to make the next. And it's easier to make the next. And then it's easier to make the next. When you... I think what happens there, it's almost like a continuum. All right, I've got more diagrams coming to me as we're talking this out. It's almost like you have a continuum. And on one end of the continuum is... This is it: integrity.

• 34:20Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:21Rory Vaden?

  Okay? On the other end of the continuum, let's just say is compromise. And your reputation is somewhere on this continuum. And every single decision that you make, every single choice, even the ones that nobody else knows about except for you, is either moving you on the continuum, closer to full integrity, which is, somebody who has full integrity is fully aligned, full authenticity, they don't have insecurity, and so they can be fully themselves and express themselves in the rawness, which people are drawn to, or you compromise.

• 35:01Rory Vaden?

  And as you compromise, your reputation, your personal brand, your identity starts to become unclear, and the more you compromise, the more you compromise. So here's something, I don't mind sharing this publicly, because this is something you inspired me to do, was, I don't think I was ever an alcoholic. I don't. But there was a time here a couple of years ago, when I realized, it was like, I was drinking too much. Just drinking too much, right? Like, I'm keynoting, I'm speaking at all these events, like 60 events a year, and so I'm flying in first class, and then you get there, and the client takes you to dinner, and then, you know, you're back, whatever, and it's just, it's easy to have a couple of drinks every night. And then I remember when I met you in person for the first time, and we went out, and, you know, you didn't have anything to drink, and I was like, that's wild.

• 35:46Rory Vaden?

  And then we had that dinner that night at Michael Hyatt's house. You remember that? It was Donald Miller, and Michael Hyatt, and- Josh Axe. Josh Axe, and Jeff Goines, and John Acuff, Jeremy Coward. The Nashville Mafia. The Nashville Mafia, and I don't know if everybody was, but most people were drinking it, and you weren't. And I think, I asked you, I was like, so what's with the drinking thing? And you were just like, I just don't do it. Yeah. And there was something about you doing it, and there were a few other people in my life too, but when I saw that it was okay for you not to do it, it was like it gave me permission to let it go. And then, you know, when AJ told me we were pregnant, and we were having a baby- It was a no-brainer.

• 36:30Rory Vaden?

  It was like, okay, so she's not gonna drink, so I'll just do this with her. And so, cold turkey, we had one glass of champagne that night, we found out. And then, we went cold turkey, and then, after that, so Jasper is 16 months old now, and I just never went back. And, and I think the way that you said it, if I remember right, and this is the part that was powerful for me, was you said-

• 36:56Rory Vaden?

  If I look at just alcohol, and again, if you drink alcohol, this isn't like, I don't want you to feel bad. I'm not campaigning for anything and whatever. I'm just saying that what you, you made a decision for yourself. Where you said, I don't think alcohol helps me inspire people.

• 37:13Lewis Howes?

  Didn't serve me.

• 37:13Rory Vaden?

  Didn't serve you.

• 37:14Lewis Howes?

  Or serve humanity.

• 37:15Rory Vaden?

  Didn't serve your ability to serve people. And so when you said that, it forced me to kind of go like, to have, you know, pun intended, a sobering conversation about like, okay, is this making me better or is it not? And the scary part for me, Louis, is that I have a decent reputation, I think, but I've done some really stupid stuff, some really bad stuff. And when I've looked back over my life, one of the things that was in common in almost all of them was that I was drunk.

• 37:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:47Rory Vaden?

  And that was like, wow, like when you ask that question, is it serving me? And so, you know, whether it's marketing or it's a lifestyle choice or decision, it's just about you being intentional about choosing who you're going to be.

• 38:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's it. And listen, I'm the king of ice cream, so that doesn't serve me.

• 38:06Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, that's right. So you told me you had the sugar. You and I both had the sugar problem.

• 38:10Lewis Howes?

  But I go on waves of it where it's like, okay, I'm focused for a while not having it and then I'll have some every now and then. So it's like, you gotta pick and choose your own personal battles.

• 38:18Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 38:19Lewis Howes?

  That's my battle is like.

• 38:20Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, although Danielle Natoni, you know, a mutual friend you introduced us to, she's a client of Brand Builders Group. She shared some stuff with me that's got me like, now I'm working on the sugar. I'm trying to like cut it down.

• 38:30Lewis Howes?

  She's good at that.

• 38:31Rory Vaden?

  And she's good at that. And I was like, ah damn, like, okay.

• 38:34Lewis Howes?

  Let's go back to.

• 38:35Rory Vaden?

  So the yes no list and, oh, the yes list.

• 38:38Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 38:38Rory Vaden?

  You want to talk about the.

• 38:39Lewis Howes?

  So the no list is getting clear on like, what you are not going to do anymore, moving forward, what you're not going to do. And I did also in my no list was like, I'm not going to speak for less than my rate anymore. Which before I was making compromises all the time. I was like, I'll do it for half the rate for this because it's money there. And I don't really have money on the table, right? And I could use that for my team or production or whatever it may be. And I started getting clear, like, this is the rate. This is what it is, otherwise I'm not doing it. And that clarity has just allowed us to say yes and no quickly to all the inbound opportunities of speaking gigs. So that's just one thing, and we're still getting clear on a lot of things that we say yes and no to.

• 39:23Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 39:23Lewis Howes?

  I think it's important for you to create a list. Yes, I'm gonna do these things when it does this, or no, I won't do it when it does this. And so the yes list, is that what you're saying next?

• 39:32Rory Vaden?

  Dares, yeah, I was gonna talk about.

• 39:33Lewis Howes?

  Oh, go ahead.

• 39:34Rory Vaden?

  But one thing I wanted to say on the topic of no, because this is powerful, you know, the word no creates margin. And it takes incredible confidence to say no.

• 39:45Lewis Howes?

  So hard.

• 39:46Rory Vaden?

  Not just confidence, but perspective.

• 39:48Lewis Howes?

  And say no to money.

• 39:49Rory Vaden?

  Money is one of the biggest lures of compromise in the world. Money is one of the biggest things that can pull you away from integrity. Is to just, there's an opportunity to make money here. And so you always have to be playing the long game. And that's something that all these people you have on your show, like all these successful people, they're always playing the long game, always the long game. Probably the single greatest difference, I think, between most everyone and the ultra-successful. The ultra-successful are playing the long game. So getting clear on what you say no to. So what do we say yes to? Do you wanna go through that? You wanna talk about the dares?

• 40:22Lewis Howes?

  Go ahead, yeah, let's do it.

• 40:24Rory Vaden?

  Okay.

• 40:24Lewis Howes?

  Dares.

• 40:24Rory Vaden?

  Dares.

• 40:25Lewis Howes?

  This is the thing I was telling you guys in the beginning, that is powerful game changer.

• 40:28Rory Vaden?

  So this is, in terms of what do we say yes to? You want me to draw it out?

• 40:33Lewis Howes?

  Oh, you can draw it out, and then I can show it afterwards, but yeah, while you're speaking.

• 40:36Rory Vaden?

  So, yeah, it helps me, I feel more at home as a speaker, like, oh, this is my whiteboard.

• 40:40Lewis Howes?

  Trainer, yeah, yeah.

• 40:41Rory Vaden?

  I feel good, yeah. Okay, so dares are basically when.

• 40:46Lewis Howes?

  It's the framework for what you should be thinking about when launching a product or service, is that right?

• 40:50Rory Vaden?

  Yes. These were things on our yes list, as I was thinking about the future of my life, and me and AJ, and say, okay, we're gonna build Brand Builders Group, we're gonna... What are the things that we're gonna do in terms of how we spend our time building business?

• 41:02Lewis Howes?

  Yes and no, yeah.

• 41:03Rory Vaden?

  Yes and no. And we noticed, like, okay, these are some characteristics of things we're into. So, you know, this isn't like the end-all, be-all list, but we live in a world where this is possible more than ever. So the D is things that are digital.

• 41:15Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:16Rory Vaden?

  Right? Like, you can have a business without having a warehouse.

• 41:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 41:20Rory Vaden?

  You can have a business.

• 41:21Lewis Howes?

  Or a storefront.

• 41:22Rory Vaden?

  Without having a storefront. You can have a business without even having inventory today.

• 41:26Lewis Howes?

  No, yeah.

• 41:27Rory Vaden?

  Digital. So the A is.

• 41:29Lewis Howes?

  And why digital for you?

• 41:31Rory Vaden?

  Just because I want to-

• 41:33Lewis Howes?

  When you don't have overhead, when you don't have to have that extra overhead, might as well do it.

• 41:38Rory Vaden?

  Again-

• 41:38Lewis Howes?

  Less logistics, all that stuff.

• 41:39Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, and if you just think about all of this in the context of it empowers you to serve people, right? Anything that creates mental or emotional space gives you more power to serve other people.

• 41:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:54Rory Vaden?

  So, anything that's not tying me up, whether it's money, or time, or resources, or just even emotional like baggage, anything that's not tying me up is margin that I can reinvest to doing the things that I love, making a difference, like giving out there in a message. So, that's digital. Yeah, and from a financial strategy, from just business, it's like, you know, you don't have-

• 42:15Lewis Howes?

  More profitable.

• 42:16Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, and for, you know, it's working capital is the term that like entrepreneurs use. Working capital is the amount of cash tied up in the business of just running the business. So, when people owe you accounts receivable, like they owe you money, that's money that you should have that you don't have. And when you have inventory, it's cash that's in inventory that you can't use, that's working capital. So, when you have digital stuff, you don't have as much of that. So, the A is automated. Automated, automated, automated. And we live in a world of automation. You know, I did a whole TED Talk on this, which you can-

• 42:52Lewis Howes?

  On multiplying your time.

• 42:53Rory Vaden?

  You can go check that out. And one of the things to me that I realized here is that compounding interest is a way that you sort of leverage money. You invest it and then it grows. Well, in today's world, because we live in a world of where things can be automated, automation is a way that you leverage time. When you do something and you automate it, then it's like, it's kind of our compounding interest will work all day, every day. When you automate something, that's the same thing. And there's more tools now.

• 43:28Lewis Howes?

  Right. Software and everything else.

• 43:29Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, so we're looking for things that are digital, automated. The R is recurring.

• 43:34Lewis Howes?

  Huge.

• 43:35Rory Vaden?

  Uh huh. Recurring and.

• 43:37Lewis Howes?

  Friend of mine, Bedros, I don't know if you know Bedros Koulian.

• 43:40Rory Vaden?

  Oh, well, I know him, I just from seeing him on your show and social media.

• 43:44Lewis Howes?

  He did a post, yeah, a couple of days ago, where it was like three principles to building a business. He's built this huge franchise fit body bootcamp business. I mean, I can't remember how many 500 or 1,000 locations around the world, probably more than that. I'm just throwing out a big number. And he was like, my three rules of like building a successful business. One of them was every product or service should be recurring. He was like, that's one of his three principles to building a successful business, like recurring revenue. He's like, even if you don't think it could be recurring, recurring, it can be.

• 44:14Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 44:14Lewis Howes?

  Like repackaging it, repositioning it so that you acquire a customer one time and they pay you every single month or every single year. But always looking for new customers and to make your money is a hard business to begin.

• 44:28Rory Vaden?

  And here's what's interesting about that. Always looking for new customers is a hard interest to be in. And, you know, I have a long history and background in sales and not in that world at all anymore. Sales is a lot of stress.

• 44:39Lewis Howes?

  A lot.

• 44:40Rory Vaden?

  It's a lot.

• 44:40Lewis Howes?

  Knocking on doors.

• 44:41Rory Vaden?

  A lot of pressure always to get the next person. When you have recurring revenue, it frees you up to better serve your customers.

• 44:48Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 44:48Rory Vaden?

  You, you can spend more energy servicing your existing customers because, and you know, financially, from a business valuation standpoint, I don't want to get into too much of it. But, you know, normally the way a business is valued, like how much is a business worth is you got revenue, expenses and profit. And most businesses are valued at a multiple of profit. It's so like a five multiple, if you, you had 100,000 in profit, a five multiple is 500,000. It's just saying, how many years into the future? It's a, it's an estimation of future cash flows. Well, anyways, recurring businesses.

• 45:20Lewis Howes?

  If you don't have recurring, then you can't sell it for as much of a multiple.

• 45:24Rory Vaden?

  Well, yeah, because recurring companies are valued on the top line, on revenues. So instead of, you know, like, let's say you had a thousand dollars in revenues, 900 in expenses and a hundred dollars in profit. And a five multiple on earnings would be only 500. But when it's a recurring revenue, a lot of times it's valued on the top line. So five times a thousand is it's 5,000 versus 500. It's 10 times.

• 45:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 45:49Rory Vaden?

  The valuation. But, you know, beyond that, you may not ever be looking to sell a business or something, but it frees you from stress.

• 45:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:56Rory Vaden?

  Which leads to the next one. Which is evergreen.

• 45:58Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:59Rory Vaden?

  Evergreen. Now, there's a lot to be said, you know, and this one especially, it's worth a caveat, that there's a lot to be said for the power of a launch.

• 46:07Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 46:08Rory Vaden?

  Uh, and-

• 46:08Lewis Howes?

  Something comes out, the anticipation.

• 46:10Rory Vaden?

  Boom.

• 46:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:11Rory Vaden?

  Movies, they do huge launches, right? Artists do big tours, authors, right? We do the book launch, and a lot of people do product launches and stuff.

• 46:21Lewis Howes?

  Getting the awareness out there, the attention, the buzz.

• 46:24Rory Vaden?

  Yeah. But a launch is very stressful.

• 46:28Lewis Howes?

  A lot of energy.

• 46:28Rory Vaden?

  It always is.

• 46:29Lewis Howes?

  And if you live and die by a launch without having the rest of this afterwards, then that's a hard business.

• 46:34Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, you're just, you're always like, you're either going into a launch, or in a launch, you're coming out of a launch.

• 46:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:39Rory Vaden?

  The nice thing about evergreen and recurring is like, okay, we're building a steady snowball, and it's like, we can, we can breathe a little bit, we can love on our people and not always be, we could take care of our existing customers and not always have to just be thinking about selling, selling the next one, right? So, I love evergreen.

• 46:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:55Rory Vaden?

  So, there's times to do a launch, and the one thing I will say about this is it's almost like there is this, this breakthrough point, that you need to do a launch, at least one big launch to break through, and then sort of become known, and then once you're on the other side of that, you can sort of chill out a little bit.

• 47:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:14Rory Vaden?

  And then the last S there is scalable. Is scalable. I'm looking for things that are infinitely scalable, that they will grow, and you don't ever get capped.

• 47:28Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:29Rory Vaden?

  Right? So if I'm, I don't know what is an example of something that's not scalable, but something that's really, just really, really hard, or really, really big, takes a lot of energy, it's just not super, super scalable. So, you always want to be thinking, what are the long game?

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  What can I systematize so that I can duplicate over and over, right?

• 47:48Rory Vaden?

  Yes.

• 47:48Lewis Howes?

  And scale it up, yeah.

• 47:49Rory Vaden?

  Well, and if you're, if you are building a personal brand, like a lot of you listening, if you're in that space of going, okay, I want to build a personal brand, then what do I do? Or how do I make money at it? It's kind of a one to many. You're trying to figure out a way. Well, here's an example of something that's not scalable. You doing one-on-one phone calls.

• 48:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's not scalable.

• 48:08Rory Vaden?

  It's not scalable. You can only talk to so many.

• 48:10Lewis Howes?

  So many hours. Well, it's scalable to a.

• 48:12Rory Vaden?

  A point.

• 48:13Lewis Howes?

  A point, and then it's not.

• 48:14Rory Vaden?

  Right.

• 48:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 48:15Rory Vaden?

  So.

• 48:15Lewis Howes?

  Scale it up to 10 hours a day.

• 48:17Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, like however many hours you want to spend doing. But that's going to create, it's going to lock down your cap.

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly. So again, to repeat that. These are dares. This is what everyone should be thinking about in running the perfect business.

• 48:30Rory Vaden?

  We think this is the future, yeah.

• 48:31Lewis Howes?

  Future, something that's digital, automated, recurring, evergreen and scalable. Obviously, physical goods is eliminating that. So if you have supplements or clothing or beauty products, it's not digital.

• 48:44Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, now, and here's the thing. I don't know that I found any business that hits all five of these. So it's more like, what's the most that you can hit?

• 48:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:53Rory Vaden?

  But, you know.

• 48:54Lewis Howes?

  Try to do as many as you can.

• 48:54Rory Vaden?

  As many as you can, yeah. So vitamins, okay, a good example. So the nice thing about vitamins, anything that's a consumable product.

• 49:01Lewis Howes?

  It's recurring.

• 49:02Rory Vaden?

  Is recurring by definition.

• 49:03Lewis Howes?

  Can automate the process of it.

• 49:05Rory Vaden?

  Both selling it and delivering it, right? You can have people on a monthly auto ship.

• 49:09Lewis Howes?

  You can have evergreen, you can scale it up.

• 49:11Rory Vaden?

  And it can scale pretty nicely. It's not digital, so four of the five.

• 49:14Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty good.

• 49:15Rory Vaden?

  Pretty good.

• 49:16Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty good, yeah.

• 49:16Rory Vaden?

  Pretty good. And so, you know, you look at.

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  A membership site is probably, a digital membership site is probably one that fits this, right?

• 49:23Rory Vaden?

  Digital membership sites do fit this. The challenge with membership sites is the recurring.

• 49:28Lewis Howes?

  Keeping people in for more than three months.

• 49:30Rory Vaden?

  It's like, yeah, they stay 3.4 months or whatever.

• 49:32Lewis Howes?

  Finding that, like, whatever that is, that people need to stay in for, which is usually adding like a software component or something else that helps them.

• 49:41Rory Vaden?

  Or a human touch.

• 49:43Lewis Howes?

  Human touch or a physical good.

• 49:45Rory Vaden?

  Or a physical good.

• 49:46Lewis Howes?

  Which that's not digital anymore.

• 49:47Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, or an experience, like a community experience, like a.

• 49:50Lewis Howes?

  Live event.

• 49:51Rory Vaden?

  Like a live event or something, right? You get free tickets to the.

• 49:54Lewis Howes?

  Which is no longer digital, but it's pretty much. Yeah.

• 49:57Rory Vaden?

  You're going for as many as you can.

• 49:58Lewis Howes?

  As many as you can.

• 49:59Rory Vaden?

  You're going for as many as you can. And part of this is, is all of these are vehicles. These are all vehicles for you to be more of who you were designed to be.

• 50:08Lewis Howes?

  That's it. And again, you know, think if, if we're thinking about building a personal brand with theirs. It's like for me, I, by going through this process, I learned more and more about my uniqueness. And my uniqueness is not, at this moment at least, is not managing and building some massive team. And me in the weeds of like managing people all day long. It's, it's about the relationships, building relationships with other influencers, creating great content, speaking, whatever it may be.

• 50:37Rory Vaden?

  Right.

• 50:38Lewis Howes?

  Doing those things, promoting a message and trying to help the masses.

• 50:42Rory Vaden?

  Right.

• 50:43Lewis Howes?

  And so I shouldn't be building a business or a product that requires me to do things that isn't my uniqueness.

• 50:50Rory Vaden?

  That's what we kind of uncovered, yeah.

• 50:51Lewis Howes?

  And, and, and bringing in other partners or team members to help manage and facilitate those aspects of the product or services that we're doing. And I think that's important for everyone in order to go through this process.

• 51:03Rory Vaden?

  Whatever your staff is, like whatever your team is, should support very specifically what your main thing is. And then everything else, you should either, yeah, get a referral, you should just get a referral partner, right? Like affiliate commissions or referral partners.

• 51:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:19Rory Vaden?

  That's a great thing. Or just have people you trust that you recommend, or you just say no. That's the other thing is you can just say no.

• 51:26Lewis Howes?

  Cause like you said before, you know, the bigger your reach gets, the more opportunities to make money. I could create a T-shirt line, a shoe company, I don't know.

• 51:34Rory Vaden?

  You could, you could launch a restaurant right now.

• 51:36Lewis Howes?

  Soap company and restaurant.

• 51:37Rory Vaden?

  You could start a real estate company.

• 51:39Lewis Howes?

  Anything, right? You could start lots of different things and go into that. But you have to ask yourself, well, what is your passion as well?

• 51:46Rory Vaden?

  Right.

• 51:47Lewis Howes?

  Your expertise and your passion, do they lie into those things? Just because you can do them to make money, should you? And is that gonna pull you away from the deeper focus that you have? And I think that's the challenge, the, the bigger your audience gets and the more success you have. There's opportunities to partner with lots of different things and start all these products and services. And what you're saying is to partner with people as referral partners and just work off of a commission or affiliate deals or something and not do those things.

• 52:15Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 52:16Lewis Howes?

  Let someone else do them.

• 52:17Rory Vaden?

  Or just say no completely.

• 52:19Lewis Howes?

  Completely and focus on your lane. Did you want to say something else to that?

• 52:22Rory Vaden?

  No, I think that is spot on, is the confidence to be able to say no.

• 52:26Lewis Howes?

  And I think we should go into what business are you in, which is the revenue streams. Have we talked about that yet?

• 52:30Rory Vaden?

  Uh, not really. So that was a good one. So that's one of the exercises that.

• 52:34Lewis Howes?

  And this is an exercise that anyone could do right now at home.

• 52:37Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, this is a great one.

• 52:38Lewis Howes?

  If you're, if you've got a pen and a paper.

• 52:40Rory Vaden?

  I mean, all these are pretty like you could.

• 52:41Lewis Howes?

  You could do all these.

• 52:42Rory Vaden?

  Theoretically.

• 52:43Lewis Howes?

  But if you want to do this one, you essentially just write down a list of all the revenue streams from top highest earning to lowest earning, is that right?

• 52:51Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, this is one that you just basically go revenue, you just revenue streams at the top.

• 52:56Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 52:57Rory Vaden?

  And, and just, you just brainstorm them. So step one is just what are all.

• 53:01Lewis Howes?

  Speaking, books, courses, events, whatever.

• 53:03Rory Vaden?

  Membership, yeah, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever. We sell t-shirts, like whatever your revenue streams are.

• 53:08Lewis Howes?

  Just write them all down.

• 53:09Rory Vaden?

  Just write them all down. Okay, and then what you do is you do two rankings.

• 53:14Lewis Howes?

  Oh, this is great. The one through five, right?

• 53:16Rory Vaden?

  Two rankings.

• 53:17Lewis Howes?

  Oh, this, I forgot about this. This is the key.

• 53:19Rory Vaden?

  So the first ranking is which one is the largest.

• 53:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 53:25Rory Vaden?

  And so a lot of times people will say, oh, I'm in the XYZ business. But when they do this exercise.

• 53:31Lewis Howes?

  I'm in the speaking business or the, the book business.

• 53:33Rory Vaden?

  The revenue tells a different story.

• 53:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:35Rory Vaden?

  It's like, oh, you say you're in this business, you might even present yourself.

• 53:40Lewis Howes?

  Say you're a speaker, but really you're in the events business or the book business.

• 53:43Rory Vaden?

  Whoa.

• 53:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so that's the thing. It's, it's figuring out the revenue stream and figuring out what business you're in based on.

• 53:50Rory Vaden?

  Based on the actual dollars.

• 53:52Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 53:52Rory Vaden?

  Just the results. Now, now, everything we've talked about, we probably should have said this earlier. Everything we've talked about today. Happens in the context always of who you are now and also who you want to be. It's what is your current bio?

• 54:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:06Rory Vaden?

  Like, you know, how can you package yourself to be perceived as an expert today? And then it is what is your-

• 54:13Lewis Howes?

  Where do you want to be?

• 54:13Rory Vaden?

  What is your future bio?

• 54:15Lewis Howes?

  So you're, the business you're in right now may be based on the highest revenue that you have, revenue stream, but it doesn't mean that's where you need to be. I mean, it doesn't mean-

• 54:23Rory Vaden?

  Long-term.

• 54:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:24Rory Vaden?

  But you need to be clear-

• 54:25Lewis Howes?

  You need to understand the where you're at.

• 54:26Rory Vaden?

  Today.

• 54:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:27Rory Vaden?

  And a lot of times, we don't, and we don't operate accordingly. We think to ourselves, and this is all inspired to me by the like McDonald's story. I think you've heard this before, right? It's like classic MBA school story is, I guess it was Ray Kroc or someone was talking to a business class, and Ray Kroc asks the class, "What business am I in?"

• 54:46Lewis Howes?

  And they're like, "Hamburger business."

• 54:47Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, "I'm in the hamburger business." Restaurants. And he goes, "No, no, no, no." And he says, "How many of you can make a better hamburger than me?" And they go, "Well, yeah, of course, yeah, I can make a better hamburger than McDonald's." And he says, "That's because I'm not in the hamburger business. I'm in the real estate business." And he was really clear, that's like, we're in the real estate business, and McDonald's owns real estate on all of the most popular street corners in the world, right? I mean, that's, that's, but on the surface, now, on the surface, it's fine if people think you're in one business.

• 55:17Lewis Howes?

  The perception.

• 55:18Rory Vaden?

  It's fine if the perception is that, as long as you are clear.

• 55:21Lewis Howes?

  And your reputation needs to be that we create great hamburgers.

• 55:25Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 55:25Lewis Howes?

  Or we create a great family experience, or whatever it is.

• 55:28Rory Vaden?

  Whatever the reputation needs to be, or whatever your reputation actually is, is what your reputation is. But you need to make sure that your reputation is aligned with what business you're really in.

• 55:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:38Rory Vaden?

  And you either need to adjust your reputation, or adjust the revenue stream. Now, here's the part, it's the second ranking, though, that's where everything is like crazy. Is all you do, okay, so you have your-

• 55:49Lewis Howes?

  You rank your revenue streams.

• 55:50Rory Vaden?

  Revenue, yeah, so you rank them here.

• 55:54Lewis Howes?

  And the highest revenue stream is actually the business that you're currently in, based on revenue.

• 55:59Rory Vaden?

  Just data.

• 56:00Lewis Howes?

  Just based on that. It doesn't mean that's where you want to be. It's based on where you're at now.

• 56:04Rory Vaden?

  Yep.

• 56:04Lewis Howes?

  And then the second ranking is...

• 56:06Rory Vaden?

  Is the stress ranking. And so all you do is you go each revenue stream and you rank them. And you go, okay, on a scale of one to five, five being incredibly stressful. I hate doing this. It's horrible.

• 56:23Lewis Howes?

  Sucks the life out of me.

• 56:24Rory Vaden?

  Sucks the life out of me.

• 56:25Lewis Howes?

  I dread it. It's exhausting. I lose sleep over this. Everything.

• 56:30Rory Vaden?

  Yeah. It ties up our money or whatever. Like, just gives you stress. And a one being, man, this is amazing. It's life-giving. I enjoy it. I love it so much. And you just, and that's a one. And you look at what is the stress level. And what's crazy is a lot of times you find that the highest-stress things are producing some of the lowest revenue.

• 56:56Lewis Howes?

  You're like, why am I doing this?

• 56:57Rory Vaden?

  Why am I doing this?

• 56:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:59Rory Vaden?

  Makes no sense, but we do it because we think we're supposed to. We do it because everyone else is doing it. We do it because our colleagues are telling us we need to do it. We're doing it usually out of insecurity. Out of insecurity to just trust and believe and jump blindly and boldly into risking just being the person we were meant to be.

• 57:26Lewis Howes?

  That's good. That's really good. So revenue streams was a big one for us when we did this session for the two days because it helped me gain clarity on where I'm at, where I want to be, and the things that create a lot of stress. And saying, you know what, maybe we don't have to eliminate them right now because some of them are making good money. But how can we start transitioning out of them and create a deadline by when I want to remove these things completely? By increasing the revenue on other things so that I don't have to worry about the revenue on something that's creating a lot of stress.

• 57:57Rory Vaden?

  Right.

• 57:57Lewis Howes?

  And that has given a lot of clarity for me and my brand and my team to be able to move forward in things that we do better anyways. And things that were stressful because we thought we were supposed to do them. So it's a really key one. You guys can do this at home.

• 58:10Rory Vaden?

  Well, and when you do all this, and this is one of the things, and this is again, I hope you don't mind me sharing this.

• 58:16Lewis Howes?

  Go ahead.

• 58:16Rory Vaden?

  You called... And you came to Nashville and we spent a couple of days together to try to get clear on like, what's the thing you should be all in on?

• 58:23Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 58:23Rory Vaden?

  And we talked about all of this different stuff that you were doing. And at the end of our two days together, our great big epiphany was that the one thing that mattered most was what?

• 58:37Lewis Howes?

  The podcast.

• 58:37Rory Vaden?

  The podcast.

• 58:38Lewis Howes?

  Podcast.

• 58:38Rory Vaden?

  And the podcast wasn't in the conversation really of like, it was like, this is your deal, like this is the thing. And Louis, you have spent money on Facebook ads for lots of different things in the past, but you shared with me that you had never once spent

• 58:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:58Rory Vaden?

  $1.

• 58:59Lewis Howes?

  Promoting the podcast.

• 59:00Rory Vaden?

  Promoting the actual podcast itself.

• 59:02Lewis Howes?

  Well, maybe we kind of spent a couple of dollars testing, boosting a post, but yeah.

• 59:06Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 59:06Lewis Howes?

  To be in integrity of my work.

• 59:08Rory Vaden?

  But compared to other things you spend.

• 59:11Lewis Howes?

  I haven't spent much, not a few bucks.

• 59:13Rory Vaden?

  And what's interesting is it's so it's like, the podcast isn't necessarily your top revenue stream.

• 59:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 59:18Rory Vaden?

  But once we got clear about your brand DNA and who you were designed to be and part of.

• 59:24Lewis Howes?

  And that's why I wasn't focusing, I mean, it's still a major piece of everything, but I didn't think it was the business I was in because I was generating revenue and other things. So we'd spend money on those other things to make more. But really, like you were saying there, go ahead and finish your.

• 59:39Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, what I was just gonna say is when you get clear on your brand DNA and like, this is your thing, this is, and look, you, part of how you know what your thing is, because it's the thing that's working, like it's the thing that's working without having to try, without having to spend money.

• 59:52Lewis Howes?

  And it's the thing that's making everything else work.

• 59:54Rory Vaden?

  Yes, it's, it's like the keystone, it's the cornerstone of everything. And then you go, if you go all in on that thing, you don't have to worry about the money, like you know it's gonna show up. And especially you, just being as heart driven and heart led as you are, you were just like, I don't even care what the revenue streams are, like I know they're gonna show up. And you just, that's a faith and a trust that you have that if you serve people. And here's the thing about money in general, and I'm not the world's expert on money, but I grew up with none of it and then got some of it and have learned over time how to get more of it. Is money is just simply the byproduct of how much value you deliver in the world.

• 1:00:36Rory Vaden?

  And so the fact that you are delivering tons of value without charging for it on the podcast. It's your reputation. It's the reputation formula. It's like the results times reach equals reputation. You're having huge reach and so the revenue shows up. As a result of building a reputation, the revenue shows up. It may come in different ways.

• 1:00:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:58Rory Vaden?

  But it's one of the things I love about this generation. Like, speaking of millennials and Gen Z and like some of the younger folks is, I feel like one of the bright spots of the future is that people aren't as motivated by money in these upcoming generations. They're really motivated by just what is fun and what is cool and what makes a difference in the world. And there's some negative parts of that, right?

• 1:01:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:01:25Rory Vaden?

  But there's some really beautiful parts about that too is to go, you know what? Money is not going to cause maybe as many people in the next generation to compromise as it has caused people in previous generations.

• 1:01:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. See, man, there's a lot more that I know we could talk about, like brand mantra and everything else that we haven't covered here, which is, we did a two-day breakdown, which was super powerful, and you've been doing this for a lot of other people. And I asked you before, we jumped on here, if there's something we can give to people listening or watching on YouTube or on video. And you said that you wanted to give a free strategy call, 30 minutes, maybe more, to a brand strategy call. Is that right?

• 1:02:08Rory Vaden?

  Yeah. So, Brand Builders Group, right? So this is the business that we are in. So, and AJ and I are partners and we've got some other people on board. We are helping people establish, build their personal brands. We're helping them build rock-solid reputations and then we're helping them become rich, famous and influential after they've built rock-solid reputations.

• 1:02:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:02:29Rory Vaden?

  Right? So, what we do is we want to just talk to you. We want to get to know you. We just want to hear about your dreams. And then we'll share with you. What we maybe see and how we can help and maybe we can help and maybe we can't and either way is fine, but we love this and we spend time with a lot of rich, famous and influential people and we're learning a lot and we've got a lot to share. So we'd love to kind of talk to people about that.

• 1:02:59Lewis Howes?

  So on the brand call, which you guys can go to lewishouse.com/brandcall and right there you'll see the form to opt in if you want to do a free call with Rory's team on this. What will they gain from that call? They'll learn more about how to build their personal brand and how to be more influential, all those things, right?

• 1:03:17Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, I would say-

• 1:03:18Lewis Howes?

  Give them a kind of a breakdown based on what they're sharing, their goals, their vision.

• 1:03:22Rory Vaden?

  Yeah. Yeah, I would say, one is our team will help you get clear about what your personal brand really is and what it should be and sort of what kind of direction you're heading. And then, two, we'll share with you what we see for you as a potential next step or next steps for your personal brand.

• 1:03:41Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 1:03:42Rory Vaden?

  And there's almost everything that we share and teach is stuff that we have learned from other people. We've learned it from you, right? Like I've been through seven-figure webinars and I've been through SOGA and I've been through all sorts of, all sorts of stuff that we've learned from lots of people. So a lot of it, we're sharing from people that we have learned, but I think what we're really passionate about is that reputation piece.

• 1:04:04Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 1:04:04Rory Vaden?

  And keeping you authentic and congruent and aligned.

• 1:04:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, there's a real need for this because there's a lot of, you know, I have the greatest mastermind where we've got a lot of big influencers and people who have large audiences, but also don't understand where they're heading. You know, they've got too many opportunities. They don't know what their uniqueness is. They haven't figured out their revenue streams. And so I think it's really important if you're, if you're wanting to build a business or build your personal brand or launch any product or service, go to lewishouse.com/brandcall, all lowercase, and you can learn more there. And at least just jump on the call, learn more about where you're heading, your vision. It's going to be really helpful to jump on this call. So I would check that out for sure. We'll link it up in the show notes as well. I want to ask you- Two final questions because we got to wrap things up.

• 1:04:49Rory Vaden?

  Okay.

• 1:04:49Lewis Howes?

  This one is the three truths, which I think you might have answered last time.

• 1:04:52Rory Vaden?

  I have answered, yeah.

• 1:04:53Lewis Howes?

  You have. We're gonna do it again. I'll save on the question and just let you go into what are your three truths?

• 1:04:59Rory Vaden?

  Man, I always forget to prepare for these. I know they're coming. So what are my...

• 1:05:04Lewis Howes?

  This is if it's your last day and you have no more... No one has access to your content or information anymore. And all you could share with them, these three things that would be left behind. What would you say are your three truths?

• 1:05:16Rory Vaden?

  I would say, I wish I would have figured out in my life earlier to stop serving myself and start serving others sooner. And it's just like, you just... You don't feel any type of fear when you focus on others. It all goes away. So I would say that.

• 1:05:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:40Rory Vaden?

  I would say the second thing is, play the long game.

• 1:05:46Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:47Rory Vaden?

  Play the long game. When it comes to your reputation, when it comes to your money, when it comes to your relationships, when it comes to what feels good, play the long game. And then, for me, the third thing is, it's a faith thing, you know? And I hope you don't mind me sharing, but it's just like, for me, it's, I'm a Jesus guy, and I'm a Christian guy, and I believe in his plan. I believe that it's going to work out. I believe that the story has already been written. And it's just believing that the future is going to be better than the past. However that looks like for you. For me, that's Christianity and Jesus. But whoever you are, that's another thing you should at least spend more than a little bit of time getting clear on,

• 1:06:31Rory Vaden?

  is what you really believe about the long, long term.

• 1:06:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:35Rory Vaden?

  The real long term.

• 1:06:36Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:06:37Rory Vaden?

  And just believing, that's the thing that I think winners definitely have this inherent belief, that the future will be better than the past.

• 1:06:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's great, man. I love those three truths. I gotta acknowledge you, my man, because you've helped me so much get clear on my vision. And it's my goal to serve as many people as possible. And you giving me that clarity through this, you know, brand strategy, but also our friendship has been really powerful. And I know you're... Constantly helping as many people as you can who are influencers, make an impact with their reach and their audience as well. So the ability to give people clarity and clear structure is a game changer. So I acknowledge you for that, man. Appreciate you.

• 1:07:15Rory Vaden?

  Well, I appreciate it. It's an honor to be associated with your reputation. It's not something that we take lightly.

• 1:07:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, appreciate it, man. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:07:28Rory Vaden?

  I'm gonna go with, and I know people have shared this before. I heard it from John Maxwell. He said that greatness is when the people who know you the best respect you the most. You know, as much of a public world as it is, and there's a lot that I've been through in the last few years and just with social media and everything, right? Like, everybody sees this manicured image of who you are. Even if it's, even if it's your weaknesses, it's still your manicured weaknesses. It's the ones you're choosing to share.

• 1:08:02Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:08:03Rory Vaden?

  And I think the reality is that there's only a handful of people around you that really get to see you in your darkest moments, in your weakest moments. And when those people that know you the best, respect you the most, I think you've, you've reached greatness.

• 1:08:22Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, love it. Rory Bane, my man. I appreciate you. Love you, man.

• 1:08:28Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this one. Again, go to lewishouse.com/brandcall to be one of the first people to get a strategy session, a free strategy call on really how to build your brand. If you're thinking about building your brand and you want more advice, you want more feedback, then go to lewishouse.com/brandcall. The full show notes, the full video interview and all the information for that link and everything else we talked about is at lewishouse.com/670. Again, make sure to Share this with your friends on Instagram. For those that want to build an influential personal brand, share this with them. Any entrepreneur friends, those just getting started out, those who are already successful and want to go to the next level, share this with them. I hope you guys enjoyed this one.

• 1:09:13Lewis Howes?

  It's all about building an influential brand. Again, when you have more influence, you can impact more lives. And that's one of the reasons why you are here, to impact the people around you and as many people as you can. "The best way to predict your future is to create it," said Peter Drucker. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.