STOP Blanding In! How to Create a PERSONAL BRAND That Stands Out (Forward Pt. 1)

I just want to check in with everybody if this is a safe space for us to be honest and direct with each other. Is that okay with everybody here? Okay. Well, I got to tell you, I'm a little stressed out of my mind right now. That's the first part. And I have like 347 slides. No, no exaggeration. And I was going to edit it down to 245. I know I can do that in 45 minutes. 245 slides. But then I heard Neil say this thing this morning. He's like, "People just give 80%." Well, I'm going

to give 100%. So, I'm back to 347. And Neil said to me too that, "Hey, don't worry about it. If you run out of time, I'm going to run out of time. We'll do something tomorrow again." So, I'm just going to do it that way. Okay, cool. Thanks everybody. Uh, the elephant in the room is AI. And I'm not going to dwell on it, but this is what's going to happen all over the internet. More and more content, faceless content. I'm so thrilled to tell you right now that I saw that YouTube announced this thing

where they're going to demonetize faceless content that's AI generated. That means all those people, yes, sending the robots to make content, they're not going to make any money. That's an opportunity for all of us in this room. And in case you don't know it, I'm going to talk to you about how to unband yourself. The un unsuttle art of standing out in a noisy world. And I prepared a multimedia presentation for y'all. Okay? And I'm I'm going to start with a little story here. I was at VidCon recently and uh you know, it's a place

where fans go to meet creators like us. And I'm thinking, okay, we have 2.7 million followers. Okay, it was cool. I do my presentation and I just want to let you know there was a little line of people and I'm like, great, they're gonna ask me all these questions about like how I make content and what's the team like? Their question was um who are you? I was hurt a little bit like well I don't know why you're here then who am I? So my number one rule is never assume anyone knows who you are.

So, I I'm going to ask for your indulgence for a little bit because I'm going to tell my story, which I normally never do. In case you don't know who I am, my name is Chris Dao. >> Thank you. Thank you. And I'm a recovering graphic designer. Um, I had a design and production company that made commercials and music videos for advertising agencies of like some of the largest brands in the world. And we got to work on some amazing projects, projects with people I consider my childhood hero. We designed the main titles and in

film graphics for Stacy Peralta. If you guys know who Stacy Peralta, he's a legend. He's the OG. That's right. Dogtown and Z Boys, Riding Giants, and Made in America. I also got to work on video game key art. And we got to do a music video for this little known band called Narles Barkley called Crazy. And if you were a live run around that time, that song was everywhere. And it it won an MTV video music award. We got to help Audi launch the the A7 top secret project. And you can see there's some some

parallels between the crazy music video and what they wanted us to do for Audi. So, one thing leads the next. And I get to work with uh the UFC and Spike TV and FX talking to mixed martial art fighters that I've watched on TV from afar. I get to build IP for Xbox and help them with their launch and work on this music video for a little band called Coldplay. That was pretty cool. Yeah, Chris Martin's a cool guy. He is a really cool guy. And uh I even get to win an award, which I'm

super awkward to get and receive, you know? Right. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. But I'm not here to tell you about that. I'm here to tell you about this call to adventure that I had. A former classmate of mine, his name is Jose, Jose Cababay. He's Puerto Rican. And he has this idea with me. He's like, "Chris, let's let's start a YouTube channel together." And I'm like, "No, adamant. I'm behind the scenes talent. I'm not in front of camera talent." And he told me, "I'm not going to do this without you. So, what do you

want to do?" I'm like, "No way, Jose." And that's not racist. That is his name. Okay. And I was like, "Over my dead." Okay. So, in 2014, we made our first video. I'm 42 years old. This is literally a frame grab from that very, very first video. And now we're going to be YouTube famous. Or so I thought. And then nobody shows up. Nobody watches. And then we really have to figure it out. And reality set because my wife at the time, she's like, "What are you doing? Are you making YouTube videos now?" Like, "You're

a YouTuber?" I'm like, "Honey, watch the videos." I'm so excited. And she watched some of them and she told me something. Um, your videos are unwatchable. I know. And the worst part is she was right because Jose and I, we didn't really prepare. We just showed up. We started making content. And I share that with you because there's some lessons to be learned here. If you don't make that effort and you just barely show up, why would anyone give you their time and attention, their most valuable thing that they have? And so we started to

prepare. And the other thing that we learned in building a channel was show up and give value. Don't try and sell people anything. And so it's about a year in I'm a slow learner that we start to do this and the channel starts to take off. Not crazy take off, but take off by our standards. Back then instead of getting 25 views, we'd get 300 views. That was pretty cool in a single day. And over the last 10 years or so, I've been able to talk to some of the most incredible people, people that I

consider my heroes. And I got to meet them and talk to them. And now sometimes they actually call me up and say, "Hey, can I get on the channel?" I'm like, "For real? This is super cool." And so the channel really takes off with a video that most people know me for now. I think it has over 4 million views. In short form, it has a combined over 90 million views. Just this one video. And it just changes everything. It completely changes my life. And it doesn't just change the business, but it gives me a

tremendous amount of purpose. And I think it's because there's this intersection with the ven diagram of icky guy where you get to do the things that you love, the things that you're good at, the thing that the world pays you for, and the thing that the world needs. I found my sweet spot. Prior to that, I can only pick two of the four and not live a completely unified life. So, in that moment, it was total synchronicity and it's changed me forever. and I get to go and face my fears and speak in front of

a lot of people. So, I'm in Milan speaking here all the way to Manila, to Croatia and to Dubai very recently. But the coolest part of all of this was the time I got to spend with my son. My youngest son is here. We're in the Philippines. We're going swimming with whale sharks. I don't even like the water. And that's me and him right there. And for about a year and a half, he's out of school. That's my little boy. He's out of school. And we get to just travel the world together. just the two

of us. And then my oldest, he's um he goes to exit and he's a senior and the school invites me to come and speak. I got to tell you, I've never been more nervous in my life because it's okay if I mess up in front of you cuz tomorrow you don't see me. And that's kind of it. But I don't want to mess up in front of my boy. And I was just like having those sleepless nights again. Even though at this point I'd spoken a lot. And it's just this idea that I think you

understand. But here we are in front of his class. This is just right after CO and so everybody's still masked up and now I I'm very proud to tell you he's going to Colombia and yeah, he's going to Columbia. He's going to graduate soon. Thank you. And we he now he's making vlogs and he's a philosophy student studying uh communications and and and English. This is super cool for me. And then I went to visit him one time in a layover between two speaking things and he posted a video and this video got hundreds of

thousands of views and so both my boys are talking about it now and they're like texting each other about the text thread. So this is some of the messages here and somebody says your dad's fire. Uh guys, we've hit an age where we are now watching Christo's son's videos. That's pretty cool. I I have to admit. Okay. And then there's this one. Um um is your dad single cuz well so you know and then I learned a new term but I'll tell you that term in a second. So you know the whole mission in life

is just don't embarrass your kids right and now it's turning out I'm a thirst trap or something. Yeah. You know I had to look up what that word means. I'm like and my son's like I guess you're him. What do you mean I'm him? You're him dad. Whatever. And that's just just to tell you it's been a very long journey for me personally. Okay. Because this is where I started. Okay, we came to the United States when I was three in 1975. Fall of Saigon. This awkward, socially awkward, super weird person, this loud introvert gets

to do all this amazing things. I would have never dreamt in a million years that this is the life I get to live. And you know what? It gets even better than that because now I get to make a life, not just make a living. And I found this quote from Dolly Parton. Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life. And how do you get to do that? How do you get to live in your purpose service to others? Is the rent you pay for your room here on earth?

Okay. So, I have a couple of quick observations. Number one, uh we're living in a interesting time. It's been the shift away from character, the age of character to the age of personality. It used to be what kind of person are you? The substance, the character of who you are. We're living in a new time. How do you make me feel? Number two, it's becoming an increasingly dematerialized culture. What that means is all the stuff that we used to hold on to analog or legacy or obsolete media has been all put into the cloud. The

movies, the music, the media that you used to hold tangibly, we're okay now. So that means that we're paying more to have less. And there's a reason why I need to bring this up to you is because of this idea about biology is which is why do we buy things? It's less about having things. It's more about identity and meaning. who am I if I buy this? What does it say about me, my values, my beliefs? Currently, Elon's Tesla is not doing well because he's telling people this is what you're buying. This is what you're

supporting. So, even though I own a Tesla, there's a lot of hate out there because of what he's saying. Um, there's this quote from Anna Lope. She says that every time that you spend money, you're casting a vote for the kind of world you want. So, every time you're asking someone to watch your content, to subscribe, to comment, to join your email list, or to buy from you, you have to be able to go out there and tell them what else they're buying. It's just not the service. It's not the tangible thing, but they're buying

their identity, and they want to find meaning because we as humans are meaning making machines. Everything that we do tells a story about who we are. Number three, social is the new resume. Social is the new resume. Okay. And there are riches in the reaches. This is what everyone's after. If you can capture and command attention, you have incredible influence and authority in whatever thing that you want to do. I realize I'm going really fast and I just want to say uh don't stress. If you want to take pictures, slides, go for it. Later on,

I'll give you a QR code. You can do that and then I will provide you notes later. So, everybody cool with that? Okay. Now, last time I was here, I had some case studies and shared with you who's doing really well in the the the 21st century in 2025. These newly minted billionaires that are out there. Um, do you guys know who Haley Bieber is? >> Okay, I don't know who she is, but I know her last name. And I had to kind of look this up. She's the daughter of Steven Baldwin. Of course, then

that makes her the niece of Alec Baldwin and she's a model and a socialite. And things change for her. She's doing well in her life, but when she marries Justin, like things go crazy. She has now 55.2 million followers on Instagram alone. And just recently in the news, she sells her cosmetic company, Road, for $1 billion E.L.F. Cosmetics. That's super awesome. You know what's crazy? She's only 28. 28. So, you know, we live in a different time right now. We really do. Okay. Um, and just I don't want to I don't want to park it

there because you're like, "Okay, you found the one example, Chris." Like, "No, there's a million examples, but you know, I only have 354 slides, so let's go." So, there's Poppy. You've heard of Poppy. Almost grew her entire brand. This was founded by Allison and Steven Ellsworth. And they sell for $1.9 billion. Oh my god. Okay. And they started their company using social media and influencers, mostly on Tik Tok, I believe. And they started in 2018. So, in seven years, she created so much influence and impact that the rival would buy her for almost $2 billion.

So, I'm telling you guys, don't sleep on this. Everybody's been telling you about content, making content, getting over your fears. Well, if you don't do anything, we'll have the same conversation next year. New slides, but same conversation. Okay? So, I just want you to think about this. If they can do that, then why not you? Why not you? What's holding you back? Um, and I think Andy Warhol was brilliant as an artist, but he is famous for saying, "In the future, everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes. You know, he could see the future."

So, I have really, really good news for all of you. The future is now. It's right here. It's right now. And the most awesome thing is you can manufacture your own fame. You don't need a publicist. You don't need media professionals. You don't need gatekeepers to tell you what is and isn't worth talking about or publishing or sharing. You get to have that direct connection and relationship with your audience and your community. So it doesn't matter if you're 24, 42, or 60. Just numbers add up to six. I think you can do it. But not

if you have a personal bland. And I think a lot of you that's what you're building right now. It's deliberately beige for a reason. It's very boring. Okay. All right. So I have this contrary approach to personal branding. And these are there's just two key ideas that I have and lots of little tactics and examples to share with you. But number one, you have to have the courage to be disliked that is stolen from a book. If you don't know the book, I highly recommend you pick up the book and read it. Okay? It's um

it's like more of a philosophical idea, the courage to be disliked. And two, you have to figure out how you're meaningfully different. Okay? There's bad different, there's unintentional different, but you want to be meaningfully different. So I have seven core branding principles I want to share with you and maybe some jokes in in between. Who knows? Okay. Uh number one, don't chase new. Do not chase new. Um Hollywood is the graveyard for people who understand how to create new content and what happens to them. And then there's also lots of examples of when they follow

a formula and they don't create new, they do really well. There's this movie, it's called The Fountain. Have you seen it? It's with Hugh Jackman. Okay. And it's been described as a cinematic poem. Uh there's Rachel Weiss in it. Haunting exploration of love. Every frame is a work of art. And it's directed by Darren Areronowski. If you're a film buff, you know who I'm talking about. It has a 52 score on Rotten Tomatoes. It is a work of art. I could not get to the end of the movie. And I love art. Okay. Um it

it grossed $16 million at the box office and it cost $35 million. That's what happens when you chase new. Now Darren Aronowski's filmography is incredible. Raccoon for dream, black swan and the whale recently. So here's somebody who understands how this game is played. His name is Thomas Cruz Mathther IV. You guys know who that is? >> It's Maverick. And he is credited as single-handedly saving Hollywood. And you know uh this comedian Rich Hall asked this question like what's the big deal with Tom Cruz movies? Why are they so protective of the plots? Uh because he

says they're all the same. They're all the same. So here's a clip of him explaining to you all the plots in every Tom Cruz movie. It's hilarious. So here we go. Hey, I want to give a quick shout out to our 1100 members who make this content possible. If you want to see the clip that was edited out due to copyright restrictions, we're going to provide a link for you right here. >> So that's to help you understand something. I was going to just try to retell you that joke, but he's using words I probably

should not be using. But I just telling you, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition is the mother of learning. It's the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment. And let's look at some real world examples here. Okay, enough fun at Tom Cruz's expense there. The Porsche 911 Turbo, if you look at it, yeah, some of you guys are Porsche heads here. You kind of look at the cars. um they're all the same and they're very successful at doing this. So, what can we learn from that? Find something to do and do it really well.

Do it again and again until it becomes perfect. Uh we have the same issue with iPhone. They're really the same iPhone. They just rotate the camera lens, I believe. Okay. And in in 2007, uh it was launched in 2007 and has generated over 50% of Apple's revenue, over $2 trillion in sales, making the same phone again and again. And for some reason, they still dominate. Just in 2024 alone, they sold over $21 billion in iPhones. Pretty incredible. Okay. Uh there's this Bruce Lee quote I'm sure you've seen before. It says, "I fear not the man

who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." Okay, so I give you one more. This This one's kind of funny, too. This is brilliant film directed by Ridley Scott. It's called Alien, and the tagline for Alien is in space, no one can hear you scream. There was one alien. So, they're sitting there thinking, "What do we do with the sequel?" They hired James Cameron. He's like, "How about we have aliens?" Instead of one alien, we just have many. And so the tagline now is this times

it's war. Okay. And then they have David Fincher do the third movie and it's called Alien 3. And the threat is the aliens are going to come to Earth now. So on Earth everyone can hear you scream. Do you guys see the pattern here? Okay. So in theory, spoiler alert, Sigourney Weaver sacrifices herself. What are you going to do now? They were supposed to end the trilogy, but Hollywood likes to make a lot of movie money. So they make another movie and they'll call it Alien Resurrection. So it's not really over. And then they're like,

"You know what? We're still out of ideas. We'll just go to the beginning and start the whole thing again. We'll call it Prometheus." So in Hollywood, this is not called a lack of imagination. It's called worldbuilding. And this is an important concept. I'm sort of making fun of it, but I'm also trying to help you understand something. When you create more and more of the same of what people like, you get to expand the universe. And so so many of us have this addiction to creating new things because we're also chasing what's next. Chasing new

is an external pursuit. What you should be doing is looking inward and what you can do and what you can unearth and find out in yourself and share that with the world. Okay. So brands have assets and there's usually some way for us to measure this, but as far as I can see, I've reduced it down to like four things. There's your name. So, every brand has a name and it's the first thing we find out about a brand is their name. A brand has a voice. It speaks to you in a specific way. Sometimes

it's uplifting. Sometimes it drops a lot of fbombs. But that needs to be consistent because we need to know who we're talking to. It has an identity which also has some tangible assets. We call that packaging. Okay. All right. Um Okay. I'm I'm not going to finish you guys. I'm on idea too. Different is better than better. That's a quote from Sally Hogs head. And a lot of us are obsessed with making things better when we need to be focusing more on what makes it different. So I have a question for you and I saw

this online where I find most of my things. They pose this question. They have a better brand. You have a better product. The question is who wins? >> Does anybody Okay, those of you who say brand, raise your hand. Brand, right? That's a lot of people here. So there's some hold outs. Who says better product? Raise your hand. Okay, just say. Okay, that's not You guys are not being honest with me. I thought we said we're gonna be honest with each other. I saw not all hands go up, but only two hands now vote for

product. Okay, so I I posed this question and if I had more time, we would sit here and have an argument or debate about it. But what I wanted to do was to just bring up a few companies and just test it on this idea. So on one side, they have a better brand or they have a better product. And then when I show you the slide, you guys just yell out brand or product. Okay, McDonald's. >> Clearly, IKEA. >> Great. We're doing great, everybody. This is the next one is going to get us into

a little trouble. Nike. >> Okay, some of you said product over here. See? All right. Now, we're going to have to fight over this. Okay. Who Who here is a serious runner? Like really into running? Better brand or better product? >> Better product. >> Really? You're not an AS6 guy or New Balance guy. >> Okay. >> He doesn't really run. >> Oh, shots fired. Hey, we already said this is a safe space for us to be honest and direct. Thank you. >> Okay. Most runners I talk to would prefer like a brand that most people

don't wear like AS6 or New Balance or Hoka or one of these things that are really designed for runners and they could care less what it looks like. It's all about performance. Uh this one sometimes gets into a little bit of trouble. Starbucks. >> Okay. No. Okay. We're all in alignment there. And this is the one I think is the nail in the coffin. Pun intended. Liquid death. >> And I had somebody in a design group argue with me. I'm like for water it's superior water. Like yeah it tastes better. I'm like, "Sure, if you

say so." Okay. So, what we know is this is that products focus on features. So, when you're selling features, you're really trying to sell the product. Brands focus on meaning. Remember, who am I? If I buy this, what does this say about me? Okay. So, here's some some examples, some case studies I want to share with you. This is Mercedes-Benz. Does anybody know what the the tagline for Mercedes-Benz is? Students of advertising, people who watch TV, anybody? >> Yes. You do you own a Mercedes? No. >> No. Okay. It there literally is the best or

nothing. We build to a standard, not to a price point, right? You remember that? Okay. So, BMW is the the old tagline. >> Ultimate driver. >> Okay. There's more Beamers be BMW people in this room. Okay. Of course, you're younger, you're cooler. Forget the Mercedes people. Okay. So, for a while, Audi was out of the market, but they've come back really strong. So, what do they need to do to be able to to be different, to be anti-establishment, right? So their tagline is never follow. And they start saying things like um our our drivers know

how to park their own cars. It's just a disc to all those luxury cars, right? And then they launched their performance line which is the S series and this is a series of ads they did to reinforce what makes them different, right? Pretty smart. Here's another one for you. So they can build a whole campaign around this. So instead of just showing sheet metal or talking about horsepower, they create attitude, a tone of voice and say, you know what? And who here is going to say, I'm a follower. No one says that. So they start

carving out a different space in the market. So what we're talking about is cars. For a lot of people, it's brand. Some people would argue with me, it's product. But at this point, they share so many parts with other brands. It's really about what you identify with. And this is the last one, which is pretty funny. So I I found this thing just to kind of sum up this idea. Don't be afraid of being different. Be afraid of being the same as everyone else. So point number three is to be different. And the reason why

is for a period in time being good was a barrier to entry. But now good is expected. It's what it costs to play the game. So you cannot hang your hat on being good. If you're not good, you don't get to play. And so Marty Numar has this thing in his book. I think it's in the designful company called Good and Different. So we look at it together. Okay, number one, everybody starts here. You're brand new. So what you do is you copy others. It's how we learn to do anything in life. Dancing, singing, math.

We just copy others and art. But then you're stuck in this quadrant of being not good and not different. And we we have a name for that. It's called knockoff or cheap imitation. Okay? So what we do is over time we get good and this is where we go. We gradually get better, but now we're good but not different. Just think about that. Good but not different means we're me too. We're a commodity. No one can tell the difference between what we do and our competitor. Okay. So, we go back to the bottom here. So,

let's work on being different. If you're just being different, you might take shortcuts or hacks and there's lots of those things out there. And it's very appealing to us because we want to do not a lot of work and get lots of results. So, marketers target you for that. And you sign up for programs, you buy courses, you buy codes, you get someone else to do it and it never works out. So there you're different but not good. And there's a name for that too. You're a gimmick or a fad. Something that is here today

but gone tomorrow. Or you're just goofy. What you want to do is to be up here. Good and different. So good is expected. That's the cost of entry. We need to focus on being different. I assume if you're in this room, you're already good or you're good enough. Have to focus on different. And when you're different and good, you're innovative and you command a premium. what people will pay more for over a competitor. And so there's this company, it's called Apple. You remember the famous tagline, think better. No, it's think different. They're even telling you

for years now, think different. So how do we do this? Charlie Mer um Warren Buffett's former business partner has passed away, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathway. He has this thing called inversion thinking where we take the opposite approach. Okay, so the FBI has this program uh how to hide in plain sight. How do you live in a world and you infiltrate groups without standing out? So I thought why don't we try to do that instead of standing out? How do we blend in? How do we hide in plain sight? Okay, so I have a question

for all of you to think about and we'll talk about it. What would you need to do if you're in this room right now to blend in? What would you need to do? Let's find the easiest thing and we'll progressively move from easy to hard. shirt. >> White shirt. >> A black shirt. Shoot. What are you saying? >> Okay. What else? >> Lanyard. >> Have a lanyard. >> If you don't have a lanyard, you're a scoundrel cuz you snuck in. Okay. What else? Easy things. Easy things. Look around this room, everybody. It's the answer's literally

in front of you. >> What? >> Take a lot of selfies. >> Take a lot of selfies. Easy things to do to blend in. >> You don't want to. That That's standing out, I think. Right. >> Sit down. >> Sit down. Sitting down. being quiet. >> What's that? >> Hold your phone. >> Look at your phone. >> Hold your phone. Okay. >> Look at the stage. >> Wow. Okay. The answer's a little bit different than what I thought, but it works. You guys are a wild bunch. You know, if you just start to look at

what the group is doing and do what the group does, you're going to be just fine. No one will notice you. So, you you wear your hair how everybody wears it. Don't have blue hair here cuz you'll stand out. You know, be beige. Uh it used to be when I would go to these conferences, there was in a suit and a tie. There was a uniform that you would wear. So I just kind of uh to save us some time wrote down some of these things. And this is literally what people do without even thinking

about it. So they adopt the uniform, they participate in group think, they repeat the cliches that you hear over and over again, the same old ideas over and over again. They definitely follow and don't lead. And they're quiet. They don't take up space, right? So, what would you have to do like online to blend in? And what's the easiest thing that you need to do online if you don't want to stand out? >> What's that? >> Selfie. >> Nothing. Nothing would be the best thing. You would do nothing. And then what else would you do?

>> Copy. Copy paste content 100%. Uh, and some of you are doing that with industrial strength tools using AI. scrape this person's content, find this person's voice, write it for me, and then I'll speak the words to camera. Does anybody here do that? We said we'd be honest. Thank you for your honesty. I love that. Right. What happens when you do that? And this is no dis disrespect to Dan. Dan uses a lot of AI content, too, is well, who's doing the thinking? You've become the machine. You've demoted yourself to becoming the machine. You're the

human. You're supposed to be doing the thinking. So, this is a cautionary tale for all of you. Make sure you're making the content in your voice with your ideas. Use the machine to help you make it better to refine it to sharpen it, but don't let it do the thinking for you. Okay? So, don't post, copy paste. Uh you do the hit and run tactic, which is you post and you never stick around to have a conversation with people, giving them no reason why they should comment. You say empty platitudes and you take a very

safe position on everything. You're not going to be different. And then everything is always perfect in your shiny happy world. Okay. Uh, I remember this ad from the mid 90s from Dr. Martins. I recreated it. It says, "The mainstream is polluted. What you want to do is you want to be different." Now, you're probably sitting there thinking, well, how different? Like a thousand% different. No. And now I just want to look at this concept from James Clear in atomic habits. 1% different. Let's see what that looks like when we take it to the 365th power.

Okay. So, if we do a little math, most of you guys here are very good at math. I'm a designer, so I had to use this just to make sure. If we just add zero to one, we know that's one. And if we add 1% to one, that would be 1.01. You guys get it. Or if we subtract one. And if you look at this as a mathematical equation, it's fascinating how these numbers turn out, right? So if you take 1.01 to 365th power, you get 37.8. Of course, one to the 365th power is just

one. Here's where it gets really interesting. 0.99, just 1% different. 365 is 03. So if you do a little bit less, you know how Neil was talking about 80%. We're just talking about 1% less. So if you do 99.9%, that's where you'll be in a year. So let's look at a case study here. Um the late Virgil Ablo, who I'm a big fan of, he's got an interesting resume and pedigree. In a very short amount of time when he first launched his company Pyrex Vision in 2012 in six years he became the first African-American to

be the creative director or design director for Louis Vuitton. Brilliant man gone too soon. He was named for Time magazine's 100 most influential people in 2018. He famously has this thing called the 3% rule where he says don't try to change everything. Change something by 3%. We talked about changing by 1% what happens. What happens if you change it by 3%. Some of you may know this, but he doesn't know how to sew. He has no manufacturing capability. He's an classically trained architect. So when he wanted to launch his clothing company, he didn't look at

this as a hindrance. He looked at this as an opportunity. So what he would do is buy polo Ralph Lauren dead stock for $40. They made too many flannels. They couldn't sell them. He buys them for $40. Then he just took a graphic and printed it, printed on it with his brand, and the number 23 because he's a fan of Jordan. and he sells this thing for $550. He didn't change anything. He added something to it and that's all that needed to do to elevate it. And then the rest is history, right? And if you

own any piece of Off-White clothing, which is Virgil's brand, if you've ever noticed this thing on the label, it says Off-White Care of Virgil Ablo. When I didn't know what that meant, I just thought that was a cool typographic thing he was doing. He loves type. But then when you dig a little bit deeper and you understand like his thinking, it's actually really brilliant and it's a very subversive form of marketing. So back when he had no manufacturing capability, he could not design or cut or have anything manufactured. He would buy blanks from other companies

and then he would subversively design it as if they made it for him. Brilliant man. So he'd do off-white and care of champion, off-white and care of polo or whatever he would do until he had the capacity to make it himself. And that's where the idea of the label comes from. Off-white and care of Virgil Ablo. The first time he actually manufactures his own clothing. Okay. Whenever we are are not going to do something, the core emotion that prevents us from doing something is almost always fear. And there's this line from Marty Nummire again. Uh

fear, they're assassins of innovation. It's what's going to hold you back. And to continue that thought, he says that many times thinking wrong is just wrong. But sometimes it turns out more right than right. And if you don't know this person that I'm going to share with you now, you do need to look her up because she's breaking out of the mold and she's a young realtor. Her name is Brianna and she's out of Florida. She has 297,000 followers. I don't believe she'll be doing real estate for much longer because she needs a TV show

or something. Okay, so I'm going to play this clip for you. She is ridiculously funny. every clip she does irreverent and it's a way to show real estate in ways that you've never seen before if you haven't seen this. So, I don't know what the official title of this one, but we're gonna call is golf is not a sport. Okay. Uh trigger warning on on multiple levels. Put it out there. Cover your ears. Here we go. >> Of course, I'm in a gated golf course community. I feel like I'm at Donald Trump's golf course. It's

four bedrooms, five bathrooms. I walked in, I said, "Wow, that's a lot of bathrooms. Beautiful Tarpon Springs. How many square feet?" A lot of people are asking and I tell you it's a lot of square feet. It's too bright. Turn it off. >> I honestly can't believe people call golfing a sport. You want me to call John Dailyaly an athlete? No. If John Dal is an athlete, then I'm Makunis. If golf is a sport, then pool is a sport. If slamming a bunch of balls together is a sport, I'm an Olympic champion. How long have

you worked here? They give you a 401k. Or this is the perfect place to shower after you're done golfing. Rinse off that other woman's perfume so your wife can't smell it. They have a movie theater. Play Sydney Sweeney walking backwards. Play Anna Day Armis kissing POV 4K. Play Sydney Sweeney jumping up and down. This pool is huge. I can see all the golfers in their pastel shorts. Smells like Sparies just had a sale. Share this with one of your friends who plays golf every Sunday. >> I love how she does that. You see, so most

of us will talk about the features, right? The product. She's building a brand and a character. and she's like after dissing all these golfers like if you know a mother effer who plays golf tell them about this property what a brilliant way to bring it together so she clearly understands how to play the game she got the assignment uh John Bulenberg writes about this in his book think wrong like he he talks about this idea but like what is the dumbest idea that we can come up with again another example of inversion thinking okay I

was in Singapore doing a workshop the same thing I'm sharing with some of you and there was um a woman who ran an educational company and she helps helps kids with math in in Asia. Math is a very serious thing. That's why we suck, okay? Cuz they take it very seriously. And I kept asking her, "How are you different? How are you different?" And she could not say anything about how she was different. And then somebody helped her out. They said, "Well, you know, as a parent, math is a barrier and it's a confidence breaker.

It steals our children of their confidence. And in Singapore, if you can't pass certain tests, you don't get to move to the next best school." So, it's a big problem. So then she finally said, "Other schools turn away your kids. We don't. We help to rebuild their confidence." That's awesome. I could care less. My kids are studying art and philosophy. But if your parents cared about this, this would mean a lot. So then I said to her in a very flipped way. So you'll take anybody. Uh you have no standards then, right? That's what you're

saying. So what if we use some of this inversion thinking? We try to think wrong to see if we can break the mold here. And I want to share this with you to help you understand how these patterns work. Okay? What if we thought like what's a really dumb idea? What if the school was like a strip club because they also don't have standards. You pay it's it's a guarantee, right? It's a guarantee. Okay. So So I I did a little research. I and I looked up names of strip clubs that I thought were funny.

Uh, Plan B. Uh, Starbucks. Daddy's little disappointment. I'm sorry about this one, ladies. The happy swallow. I'm so sorry. Uh, I can't believe it's not buttholes. And you know, puns. Puns when used. Well, I love them. The breast is yet to come. Okay. And then I I started looking up messaging. You know, my browser history is a little messed up right now. I said, "What is the best strip club messaging?" And happy Thanksgiving. And you know, you can see how they're tapping into pop culture. Less fake news, more fake boobs. And this one's biblical. Money

is the root of all evil. Cleanse yourself here. No shoes, no shirt. When can you start? And the last one, sorry, we're clothed with a lisp. You could totally do it. So if we look at this unconventional thinking, I started to just kind of to to borrow from this idea instead of speaking to kids and parents a certain way. If we find out what we're different, how we're different, we can speak to that. We can do something that's going to stand out. So I wrote some lines, right? Uh so first of all, I renamed the

school. I'm going to call the school the comeback kids. Math tutoring done right. Can you feel like there's a personality, a story, a brand starting to emerge from this instead of calling it Mary's math school? Okay. Uh, your test scores might be broken. Your child isn't. Failed math. Welcome home. Uh, we put the fun and fundamentally behind. So, they get a little bit crazier as we go. Okay. Um, your previous math teacher called, we didn't answer. Uh, Pi Day special. We make math as easy as 3.14. But, you know, come for the tutoring, stay for

the self-esteem. We take everyone, even your kid. truth. Would this stand out or would it not? >> You understand the game? Okay, here's one last one. Uh, this one's a joke. Uh, this is one I just typed in. What are some math jokes right into Google? And it says, "What do you call friends who love math?" Algebra Bros. Uh, this is a quote from uh, Freeman Dyson. The appearance of wrongness is proof of true creativity. If you're not doing enough wrong, I dare challenge you that you're not being creative enough. Okay, I have five minutes.

Okay, the package is the brand. Okay, there's this concept uh from Google how they built companies. Basically, Google doesn't enter into a market unless they believe they can 10x that market. And I was talking to Robert Wong, who is the VP of Google Creative Labs many years ago. To the best of my memory, this is how he described what he told me. Okay, there's this funnel, right? Uh almost all businesses do this. They start up here. They they have a meeting with management, whoever they are. They run it by engineering, accounting. They figure out feasible

feasibility, how much it's going to cost. And then they talk to like the marketing and the legal team. Are we going to get sued? How do we market this thing? And then eventually, if it pass all that stuff, they'll build the design and the prototype, something for you to touch and touch around or mess around with. Their whole approach is to take the the triangle and flip it upside down 180 degrees. They say we should start here. And the reason why is because if people don't like your thing, don't even bother building it, running it

by the engineers, running it by legal. It's kind of brilliant, right? And this is what where designers and creative people excel. We make things. We we make the intangible tangible. And there's a real reason why. According to the study from the University of Rochester, 55% of your brain is dedicated to visual processing. We are way more visually oriented than we think. This is why aesthetics matter. So this next part, I want to teach you how to see. I want to teach you how to see. To become an observer of the world, how to notice things

and use the world as your classroom. You guys know this brand Asop. You like it? You love it? Very expensive. My wife, we've never had Asop in our house until we sold it. So she uses props and my cousins will come by like, "Oh, I love your soap." I'm like, "You mean you use the soap? That's just that's display only." Okay. Now, if you look at ASOP, what do you notice about ASOP? Right. Yeah. Drio comes out of the bathroom. I love this stuff, bro. I'm like, okay. All right. I see how it is. So,

ASOP, if you look at this thing, first of all, I don't know if you know this, they're an Australian company, but they have it in English and French. Why is that? Because they want you to think it's European. French in particular, right? And they put it in this beautiful amber colored bottle to give you this sense of apothecary so they can charge you an arm and a leg. And the paper it's very natural. The type set it's beautiful and it has this kind of u medicinal quality to it with this black and white. It's it's

really beautiful. And this is how they build a very expensive product from a commodity. They tell a story and they tell you what's different about it. Vitamin water. The name itself is super creative. You're not drinking sugar water. You're not drinking energy water, you're drinking vitamin water. And then they borrow the the visual language of pharmaceutical products. Whenever you get a doctor prescribed thing, it looks something like that. So pay attention to that. Even the colors follow a certain color scheme from the language of the drugstore. So if you want help with your packaging and

you want a design makeover, I'm going to share a story with you and I'm going to show you some examples on something that you can do. My friend Phyllis William Strowder, she's known as a ghetto country grandmother. Uh, this is how her design looked. And I didn't really do this for her to use. I just used it as a case study. She did her own thing and she hired a really good designer. So, we want to do a little surgery on this. Okay. So, I asked her, and I'm going to ask you to do the

same thing if you need some help. Go out to the supermarket, the grocery store, usually a high-end grocery store, and browse the aisles and find something that really inspires you to say like, you know what? I love everything about this. the color, the materials, the printing, the type face, the illustrations, all of that. I want you to look at all of that and say, "That's it." So, she came back. She likes to smoke cigars and drink. Her brand is Wild Turkey. I've never had a drop of alcohol in my life, so I know nothing about

this, but I'm studying this. I'm looking at it. So, this is what she chose, right? So, I want to show you what I saw. Okay. I saw like an etched turkey, like a wood or a hand engraved etching. So, that's cool. It's a sepia tone. I look at there's a little crest at the top there. You see the A, the N, the 1855. This crest shield. Uh, in print design term, it's called the decal edge where the paper looks, it's like it's torn. It's not perfect. And there's a seal, a signature. There's all kinds of

little things like elements of numbers and these little dots, these perforations on it. So, I started to break that down. So, when you go to do this yourself, find that package, something that inspires you, something's really beautiful, and start to break it down. The first thing we do is start with type and color. Okay? identified the type faces, something close. It doesn't have to be exact. So these are the four type faces and those are the colors, bourbon, hickory, and gold. And then I started to build something for her. I asked her to send me

her signature, which that's what that is. I built her a little crest just like the crest we saw. Her name is Phyllis Strowder. That's why it's PS. Uh she has a podcast called Grandma's House. So there's the BH, there's the gold, and then we start to put it together. So this is how you take a package and use that as inspiration for you to build your own packaging and your brand design. So, here's the result. It looks something like this. Okay. I want to tell you, you don't have to do exactly this. You can just

have fun and you can make things. Okay. Um Neil, is it okay if I finish this part and then I'll get off stage? I'm a little over time already. Okay. I know what you're like. You're going to say something like, "But Chris, there's nothing special about my industry that I'm in. I've already given you example very boring commodity meto lanes where people do something that's different." Now, I want to share this idea with you. Nothing is a commodity. Uh Ron Baker writes about this in his book implanting value pricing. It's just there's a lack of

imagination. So if you go to a supermarket, you can buy a head of lettuce, iceberg lettuce, I believe, for about $2.49. And you say, "Well, lettuce is kind of a commodity, isn't it?" There's no difference between one head of lettuce versus another or slight differences. But with a little creativity, if we hand wash and sort and preack them, we can charge a different price. We can now charge $4.49. And we can get a lot more boxes of pre-washed lettuce than we could from one head of lettuce. And we don't have to stop there. We can

go on and say, you know what? What if we license like somebody like Wolf Gang Puck's name and create a pre-made salad? That would be $1199. How do we go from $249 to $4.49 through 1199 through some creativity? That's all it is. And through some storytelling and making it more convenient for the person who wants to buy a lettuce a head of lettuce because they don't really want to buy a head of lettuce. They want to eat a salad. And I think one company uh has done has taken this to the extreme. They're called Airwan.

And I don't understand this why people pay $22 for a smoothie, but they get somebody like Haley Bieber or Travis Scott and they call the Stormtorm smoothie and they describe it as designed to look like a flowering desert cactus and taste like nature's limeade. Just copyrightiting. It's copyrightiting. All while companies like Jamba Juice are going out of business. They're charging five times as much. I understand there's a $30 orange juice now. No, it's a $50 orange juice. I tried to find it, but maybe it's not real. Okay. Um, I only got through part of this.

I wish I could share the rest with you. There's some other things I want to talk about. Some some writing and some visual stuff like fashion. And hopefully tomorrow I can do that with you. I I just got to get to this part here in case I'm not able to. So, just to quickly summarize for you, don't focus on being better. Focus on being different. have the courage to be dis to be disliked. When you take difference, what makes you different, special, unique, that comes from within you, not outside of you, and you add just

a little sprinkle of design, you create delight. Okay? And this is just to say the more you you are, the more you are. It's you to the power of you. I'm out of time. Thank you very much, everybody. If you found this content to be valuable, I just want to let you know there's so much more inside the membersonly library. Workshops, whiteboard sessions, extended lessons, stuff we normally charge a lot of money for, you can have access to for $15 a month. It's all included. Hit the link below. See you on the inside. [Music]