Jay Papasan:
So you’ve probably heard of one or all of these names, Lewis Howes, Ed Millett, Amy Porterfield, Lovey Jones, and I could go on and on. These are really, really famous personal brands out there. They’re running huge businesses. They’re impacting millions of lives. You may not be aware of the dynamic duo who sits behind a lot of them, and that is Rory and AJ Vaden. They are a couple, I’ve known them for many years, and they started a business called Brand Builders Group.
And the story behind that, which is the central to this episode, is that they had to hit the complete reset button. They had to start over when, suddenly, they lost their career paths. And they had to build from scratch with all kinds of non-competes in play.
And so the process they ended up building for themselves is actually what they end up teaching to a lot of their clients. So, you’ll hear their story, and then hear how to apply it to your business and your brand. And it really comes down to a handful of questions, and we love questions at The ONE Thing, but is it, who is it you ultimately serve and what is the problem that you ultimately solve?
And Rory is ruthless about this. You can’t be general. You have to be specific. Get it down to a single word. And I was really breaking my brain during this interview trying to think of what my word was, and you might be doing the same. It’s a great episode. It’s very focused. And we kick it off talking about their brand new book that’s coming out in just a week called Wealthy and Well-Known, where they talk all about this process. So, let’s dive right in with Rory Vaden on the Brand Building Process.
I’m Jay Papasan, and this is The ONE Thing, your weekly guide to the simple steps that lead to extraordinary results.
All right, Rory, I’m so excited to have you here and I want to go right into this. What’s the first line of this book?
Rory Vaden:
All right. So, the book opens, the book is co-authored with my wife and business partner-
Jay Papasan:
AJ.
Rory Vaden:
… AJ. The opening line of the book is, “Today will be your last day. Your services are no longer needed.” Our story starts with her getting fired from a company that we spent 12 years of our life building from scratch. And you basically had investors and business partners who technically owned it. And so, that’s where our story-
Jay Papasan:
Was that the first line of an email? Was it an actual note?
Rory Vaden:
It was a meeting.
Jay Papasan:
It was a meeting. Okay, so you actually got to hear it.
Rory Vaden:
No, I didn’t. I wasn’t in the meeting.
Jay Papasan:
Okay.
Rory Vaden:
But the reality was that she was fired, like straight up canned and we never-
Jay Papasan:
Is this like an asteroid strike? Did you have any warning signs?
Rory Vaden:
No idea. You know how you run a business, you have partners and you guys have different philosophies and things, and as you grow and it changes. But like no real idea. And so, basically, then, I resigned. And we had spent 12 years of our life, blood, sweat, tears, 80 hours a week, building this thing from scratch. We had a couple hundred team members and we loved the company.
Jay Papasan:
That’s how we met is when you were representing that company and you were building your brand within it. I got to know, it wasn’t Take the Stairs, it was Procrastinate on Purpose. You reached out and we got to know each other. And I mean, I connected y’all to that brand quite a lot.
Rory Vaden:
Well, it was. I had been there for a very long time. I had learned a lot about sales and business and leadership, but all of us go through a moment in our life where the identity that we had and everything we knew about who we were disappears and you start over. And that’s what that was for us. I would have had the logo of the company tattooed on my behind the day before this went down. I was all in. Never thought I would be anything else.
Jay Papasan:
And you believe everybody goes through this.
Rory Vaden:
I mean, I think a lot of people, maybe everybody. But everybody, you know, the midlife crisis is this, right?
Jay Papasan:
Yeah.
Rory Vaden:
You wake up and go, “Who am I? Why am I this?” or “Why am I not that?” or “Who am I meant to be?”
Jay Papasan:
I immediately went to our listeners, and maybe they’re sitting in a classroom and the identity of being a doctor that they thought they were going to do, they realized ain’t gonna happen. I mean, I was listening to a story of someone the other day that was telling about how the wedding was planned. And then, they realized that future that they had for themselves of the duo was not going to be. They had to call it off. Like it can happen, not just in a professional setting. You have your identity.
Rory Vaden:
You go bankrupt. I mean, people go bankrupt on things. The marriage falls apart. Someone in your family gets sick. Like someone gets-
Jay Papasan:
You’re an athlete and you get hurt playing wiffle ball.
Rory Vaden:
You get injured. That’s right, yeah, that’s what happened to me. Thanks for bringing that up. And then you go, “All right. How do I figure out who I am meant to be in the next chapter?” That’s really what this new book is about. It’s really about identity. And what we do at Brand Builders Group is we’re a personal brand strategy firm. So, on the surface, it’s like we teach people how to grow their social media following, and write emails, and build websites, and do funnels, and drive leads, and build their personal brand. But what it’s really about is much deeper than that. It’s going, what is the mission of your life? And then how do we monetize that and turn it into a business?
Jay Papasan:
Yeah, but I mean, if you can succeed in that foundation, like who is it I actually want to become and who I want to serve, like those are all tied up in that knowing thyself. Everybody who builds something on the back of something that doesn’t have that foundation of clarity is building a house of cards anyway.
Rory Vaden:
They are, right, exactly. And that’s why we all go through it, right? It’s like very rarely does someone, like in their twenties go, “Oh, this. I know exactly who I’m going to be.” And then, they do it, and they just build it, and they just cruise their whole life. Like this is an inevitable crash landing for all of us.
Jay Papasan:
I did the research on that by the way.
Rory Vaden:
Oh, tell me.
Jay Papasan:
Like I read because The ONE Thing is all about purpose. We’ve tried to unwind it from that word that can be so heavy but I was like, “Man, this is really hard for people.” And the best research I could find is, roughly, two out of 10 people, by the time they’re in their 20s, has a clear sense of purpose. And about eight out of 10 of them are deeply religious. So, you can go, like, you know these people, we live with them, maybe they argue, like, “Oh, my purpose is to honor the God I serve.”
Rory Vaden:
Sure. I mean, we’re hardcore Bible Thumping Jesus for years. Like, we know that like serving God is the first thing, but it’s also, how do-
Jay Papasan:
But then how do I do it?
Rory Vaden:
Practically, right? Like, does that mean I’m a missionary or a pastor? Like, that’s not our deal. Like, we’re not pastors. And I’ll tell you, this is the single greatest piece of personal branding advice I’ve ever received and this is not a Rory Vaden quote, although I wish it was, but it is not. I heard a guy named Larry Wingate say early in my career, he said, “The goal is to find your uniqueness and exploit it in the service of others.” And this is the one thing. This is like where The ONE Thing intersects.
Jay Papasan:
And he used the word exploit, which is a really strong word.
Rory Vaden:
Strong word, but exploit it in the service of others. But he wasn’t really in the business of teaching people how to do it. In fact, when everything unraveled with our former business and we exited, right? We were equity partners. So, we had an exit, and all that stuff and, eventually, resolved things and moved on. And then, we started Brand Builders Group. But we were in sales training before. That’s what the business was. We were doing sales training. And we couldn’t do that. That was part of our agreement that we wouldn’t do that. So, I was like, “We have to create something all new here.”
And it was really Larry’s quote, because I was like, “Wow! What if we could develop a process or a framework that actually walked people through how to find their uniqueness, so that once they were clear on it, they could then know how and spend time exploiting it in the service of others to make it a business,” or, of course, when people think of us, they often know like our famous clients – Lewis Howes, Ed Milett, John Maxwell, Amy Porterfield, they’ll be the hip hop preacher – but most of our clients are not those people.
Most of our clients are entrepreneurs and executives. They’re professional service providers and they’re building their personal brand, not because they’re trying to become a best-selling author necessarily or something. They’re just trying to drive more warm leads for the thing they’re already doing. But-
Jay Papasan:
But they’re asking the question, how can I be invaluable at what I do?
Rory Vaden:
Yes.
Jay Papasan:
Right, because when you’re truly unique, you’re also invaluable.
Rory Vaden:
Totally. You’re uncopyable. You differentiate based on who you are. And that’s the goal. We all want the purpose, right? We all want more purpose. We want clarity about that. And then once we’re clear on that, it’s going, “How do I turn this into something that also grows my business or provides a financial livelihood for me?”
Jay Papasan:
I love that. Can I just go back a little bit? You get this notice, AJ gets fired, let go however that took place, your job is done. You resigned ’cause you’re going to be in this together.
Rory Vaden:
Yep. Our income goes straight to zero.
Jay Papasan:
You’ve already had what a lot of people would think is a fulfilling career around this one idea. How did you mentally bounce back from that? Because I would imagine, like it’s a bit of, like, going through a stages of I have to grieve this person I thought I was going to become in order to be free to pursue the new person I am destined to be.
Rory Vaden:
So, it’s interesting. And we deliberately chose to write this book where she writes a chapter and I write a chapter. Part of it is because we had very different experiences. She was self-admittedly a workaholic and had her identity tied up in her results and like as a young professional woman, she was trying to prove her worth through achievements and records and all that sort of stuff. And so, for her, even though it was shocking, it was freeing.
For me, it was, it was like I spent my whole life building the life of my dreams, and in one moment, it was gone. I wasn’t trying to escape. I was all in, and then it was like everything I’d ever known was gone. So, it was a different experience for me. I never questioned leaving. I knew I needed to do that. But honestly, the only thing that I had to do was to trust God, right?
So, in Take the Stairs, so my first book, we have something called the Perspective Principle of Faith, and it says our ability to have peace is directly proportionate to the term of our perspective. So, basically, the longer the timeline of your horizon of view, the more peace you have. And I really believe, you know, Romans 8:28, “In all things, God works for the good of those who love Him,” and all that stuff. And so, I go, if it’s not good, then God’s not done. And I believe that, but that doesn’t mean it was easy. It was hard. I was scared, lonely. Like even though, I mean, her and I were together, but it was like our 200 team members were gone. My customer list, my social media following, my identity, like everything, our best friends were working in the company and we severed those relationships overnight. And so, I was like, “Well, I don’t know what you’re doing, God, but I trust that if you’re doing it, you have some reason.”
And that is the choice that I think most people can’t make in difficult circumstances, is faith is choosing to believe that what is happening now is somehow for the greater good later on. And I had written about that, right? So, I believe it. I don’t like to practice it and I didn’t like walking through it. But now what we do at Brand Builders and helping people find their uniqueness, we know that for all of us, your pain is the most important part of what prepares you for your purpose.
Jay Papasan:
Right. It’s a signal. It was painful because it was that important to you. It’s a signal. It gets there. And I want to go into this time frame. We had the privilege of hearing Dr. Robyne Hanley-Defoe speak, and she talked about trying to work with her child. And she’s an expert on resilience. And to me, I’m thinking like, this is a bounce-back story and hope, right? So, in your words, faith. Faith to me, it feels like a vehicle for hope. And when we give up hope, we stop taking action.
And so, I connect those two and the long timeframe, every time Gary and I have gotten sideways in the 24 years we’ve worked together, I usually look up and he’s looking at a longer time horizon. So, yeah, it’s a bad hour or a bad week or a bad month or a bad season, but he’s still looking at that in the context of a larger life. And if we can teach ourselves to do that in these moments, what a gift.
Rory Vaden:
Totally. The other perspective shift is moving from being focused on self to focused on service. This is the magic. This is everything that we have learned that it’s like, you only feel scared when you’re thinking about yourself. You only feel self-conscious when you’re thinking about, does my hair look good? Like, is my outfit cute? Everything about fear is, am I smart enough? Am I good enough? It’s all self-centered, but there is no fear when the mission to serve becomes clear.
The moment that I am focused on serving somebody, everything changes. And of course, in our actual story, part of what happened was, this was, again, I don’t know how else to credit this other than God. Lewis called us within days of AJ being fired.
Jay Papasan:
He was your first customer.
Rory Vaden:
He was our first customer and said-
Jay Papasan:
This is Lewis House. And if people listening don’t know who Lewis House is, go start to type his name into Google and you’ll see all the results. Like you start with Lewis and he’s probably the first, maybe, I don’t know. I don’t know. He’s gotta be one of the first or second Google results in the name Lewis.
Rory Vaden:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Not Lewis and Clark.
Rory Vaden:
Now, he wasn’t that way in 2018, when we first started working together. But what happened was he said, I feel like I need to borrow your brain. Do you have any time available? And it was like, “Well, the calendar’s wide open. Come on over.” So, he flew from LA and came to our house in Nashville, and we spent two days together. And he was the one that actually said, “This is your new business.”
Jay Papasan:
Wow!
Rory Vaden:
This is what you were born to do. And we’re like, “No, this is not our business. We just got out of a business. We don’t have a checking account. We have no income. We have no database. We’ve got no team. We got nothing.” And he’s like, “No, this is what you were born to do.” And we’re like, “Well, we don’t have anything.” And he said, “That’s okay. I know some people and I’m gonna have you on the show, and I’m gonna tell everyone how powerful this experience was, and we’re gonna tell the whole world this is what you do.” And that’s how the company launched. And that’s how we went so fast from high to low to climbing again.
Jay Papasan:
I love that. And so, when you met with Lewis, did you already… I know you teach a six-part framework. Is that what it’s called? And it’s in the book.
Rory Vaden:
Yeah, it’s called the Brand DNA Helix.
Jay Papasan:
Were you kind of teaching him an early version of that and didn’t realize it was the thing or it was already a process?
Rory Vaden:
No, it definitely was not a thing. It became the thing. Everything that we teach is stuff that we have done and that we’ve guided other clients to do. We never teach things that we just learn from outside educational sources. We only teach things that we have experimented with. And so, we didn’t know that it was a thing. It was just when he was describing what he was struggling with, he’s like, “I’m pulled in many directions. I’ve got 17 streams of revenue. My revenue is growing, but I’m spending it all on my team. I have no margin left over in money or time. I’m stressed. I don’t have clarity about where we’re going. I’m so busy, I’m spread so thin.” And it was really like, how do we help him find his one thing?
And one of the frameworks that we teach now that we call Sheehan’s Wall, really captures this well. And we named this after a colleague of mine named Peter Sheehan, because Peter was the one who originally kind of came up with this concept in a corporate environment. And then when I saw it, I was like, wow, this applies to personal brands. So, we adapted it and we named it after him. He didn’t name it after himself.
But the way that Sheehan’s Wall works is in any given market or industry or geography or vertical, there’s two groups of people. There are those who are unknown, they have obscurity. And then, there are those who are well-known, they have notoriety. And in between is this huge invisible wall. And what most of us do who are unknown is we look at the people who are well-known, Gary Vaynerchuk, Tony Robbins, Brene Brown, Oprah, whoever, and we go, “I’m gonna emulate what they do because that’s what I want. I want to become well-known.” So we go, “Oh, well, Gary Vaynerchuk talks about all these topics.”
And The Rock has 50 different business models, right? He’s got a clothing line, and a t-shirt company, he’s got facial products, he owns XFL Sports, like all these things and movies. And then we go, “Tony Robbins talks about different topics and serves audiences. So I wanna talk about different topics to different audiences on different platforms and have multiple streams of income,” which we think is the stupid advice ever when you’re first starting out. And what happens is they bounce off the wall. The reason they bounce off the wall is because if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results.
Jay Papasan:
Oh, wow. Nobody who listens to this podcast has ever heard that.
Rory Vaden:
But if you want, you find the one thing.
Jay Papasan:
So true.
Rory Vaden:
But The ONE Thing as a concept applies to branding is going, “What’s the one thing you want to be known for? What’s the one word you want to own? What’s the one revenue stream that matters above all others?” Nobody who got rich from multiple streams of income. They got rich from one amazing stream of income. Later, they diversified. Later, they spread around, but that’s not how they got rich.
Jay Papasan:
Almost always reinvesting from the place that made them rich.
Rory Vaden:
Or vertically integrating to the thing they were already doing. And people don’t know that enough. And that’s why you and I have always been so aligned. It’s like, “Yes, it’s The ONE Thing.” You have to figure out your one thing.
Jay Papasan:
I love that on so many levels because we look up and we see the divide. Nobody knows me, but everybody knows them. And we think it’s a normal distribution curve, right? But it’s, actually, inverse. Like when I think about the wall, I think about a gorge that you have to go over because there’s all these people over here stacked and nobody knows who I am, unknown. And then, there’s this group that’s over here, but it takes tremendous focus to get to the other side.
Rory Vaden:
Yeah, that’s it, it’s focus. I mean, think of a real wall.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah, punch through it.
Rory Vaden:
If we’re gonna try to pick a sledgehammer, and we hit all these different spots, nothing happens. But if I hit the same spot again and again and again, that’s how you break through.
Jay Papasan:
You break through.
Rory Vaden:
It almost doesn’t matter what you pick. It’s just that you pick something, right? Like too many people are trying to make the right decision. And it’s like, all you need to do is make a decision and then make it right. Focus and do it. Now, if we can find your uniqueness, it will also be a passion project for you. It will also be a service project. It will also be part of your divine identity of who God created you to be, and that makes it magical. But even if you didn’t have that, just the sheer focus of doing one thing is what it takes to be successful, of course, which-
Jay Papasan:
And that’s where trial and error, over time, you get better and better at using that sledgehammer on that spot until it finally breaks through.
Rory Vaden:
Absolutely. And look, if you take the average person here listening to this, if you just do a simple explanation here, if you have 10 initiatives going on in your business, and on average, you have 10 units of resource. So what is a unit of resource? Time, team, technology, capital, prayer, whatever your units are. But if I have a total of 10 units of resource, and if I’m a small business, I probably don’t have many. But I have 10 ideas and I have 10 initiatives. Each initiative on average gets one unit of resource. Who do you think is gonna win? A person who has 10 initiatives, each with one unit of resource?
Or what we did with Lewis, he had 17 revenue streams. The only thing… Lewis has been so generous with his praise of us. Frankly, the only thing we ever did that ever really mattered was we asked him one question. What would happen if you stopped doing all of this stuff and just went all in on the podcast? It wasn’t even a recommendation I made to him. It was a question.
Jay Papasan:
It was a question.
Rory Vaden:
It was a question. And for him, the light bulb went off and he was like, “That’s it.” And he shut down multiple millions of dollars of revenue after one conversation that we had. I mean, this is big-time cojones. Like he went all in, but you go, “Who’s gonna win? The guy with 10 units of resource on one initiative.”
Jay Papasan:
Right. So, like you’re using unit of resource. So, we’re getting into this place where we’re starting to get really into how you teach people to do, how to become wealthy and well-known. On the other side of the break, we need to take a quick break, let’s go dive straight into that.
Rory Vaden:
Let’s do it.
Jay Papasan:
All right, welcome back, Rory. Let’s dive into your process. You’ve got six things that you walk people through so that they can build on your experience, on Lewis’s experience, and get what they want.
Rory Vaden:
So, we really have 12 different experiences, but in the first experience, which is a two-day experience, there’s six questions we ask people to help them find their uniqueness. So, you know, the genesis of, what’s the first step? How do you build a personal brand? The first question is one of the hardest. It’s one of the simplest, but it’s one of the hardest. Most people cannot answer the question. And the question is, what problem do you solve in one word? That’s it.
Jay Papasan:
In one word.
Rory Vaden:
In one word.
Jay Papasan:
And I’m an author, don’t I get two?
Rory Vaden:
No, one word, and no hyphens. I mean, if you look at Dave Ramsey, he’s one of the biggest personal brands in the world. Love him or hate him, guy’s built a multi-nine figure business, thousand employees.
Jay Papasan:
Debt.
Rory Vaden:
Debt.
Jay Papasan:
That’s where he started.
Rory Vaden:
It’s where he started.
Jay Papasan:
I know he’s in EntreLeadership and many other things.
Rory Vaden:
But Sheehan’s Wall, right? He broke through the wall on debt, still to this day. He’s doing three hours every day on the radio, teaching the same seven baby step formula for becoming debt free. Debt is dumb, cash is king. Like it’s on the opening of a show. Dave Ramsey owns debt. Brene Brown owns shame. She owns it. Mel Robbins was here last year. We shared the stage and I met her here, became friends ’cause I met her here. She blew up teaching people how to overcome anxiety, right? And how to let go of the stress and the worry of anxiety and her panic attacks.
Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated his life to eradicating racism. Mother Teresa dedicated her life to eradicating poverty. These people had crystal clear clarity about what problem they solve. I broke through the wall on procrastination. That’s what my Take the Stairs book was all about, overcoming, and then my second book was all about that.
By the way, at Brand Builders Group, how did we go from zero to, in less than five years, eight figures, back to 50 employees, working with some of the biggest personal brands in the world? We solve one problem, obscurity. That’s it. That’s all we do.
Jay Papasan:
I was gonna say personal brand is two words, but obscurity is what you’re solving.
Rory Vaden:
Yeah, because the actual problem is obscurity, which means to be unclear, untrusted, or unknown, right? We help the people who are the world’s best kept secret, because that’s not a good thing. You don’t want to be the world’s best kept secret. That means you have the cure for cancer and nobody knows about it. And that sucks. And we understand those people where we go, it’s the people who get mad. They look at social media and they see other people who are getting more interviews or followers attention. And they’re like, “I’m more qualified than that person,” but that’s a person getting the attention, right? Those are the people that like our people. So, obscurity. So what problem do you solve in one word?
Jay Papasan:
In one word. What’s the biggest mistake people make when they’re trying to do it? Because my brain, like I went to the thing that you’re using to solve the problem, not the problem. Is that where a lot of people go?
Rory Vaden:
Well, people go all over the place with this. And that’s okay. It’s a messy process, right? That’s why it’s kinda hard to do on your own. It’s like, when we facilitate the process, we do what’s called a problem cloud, and we just write up everything they say, and it’s like, “Don’t edit. Just puke it out.” One of our mantras at Brand Builders Group is, “Say it ugly first.” Everything we do, say it ugly first. Just say it ugly first. So. it’s just like, so we throw it up on the board and we look at all of the things. A lot of-
Jay Papasan:
And then, you get the benefit of other people’s perspective too. The people help and guide you because sometimes, it’s right in front of you and you don’t see it.
Rory Vaden:
Totally. You know, we have different exercises, but the big thing is they can’t narrow themselves down to one problem. That’s the biggest issue. Now, the second question is, who are you passionate about serving and what are you passionate about? And one of the things that we’ve started doing is we’ve started with that question, who? So I’m a huge Simon Sinek fan. I love Simon Sinek. And the whole Start with Why concept, I love that, I think it’s great for corporate. But when you’re building a personal brand, you actually don’t start with why. You start with who. The moment you get clear on who specifically you’re trying to serve.
Jay Papasan:
So what’s the problem you’re solving and who has that problem?
Rory Vaden:
Who has that problem? When you’re clear on the who, and the more specific, the more terrific, because when you’re clear on the who, every other downstream decision becomes clear. Like-
Jay Papasan:
Well, on a practical level, if we’re talking about a business here.
Rory Vaden:
Totally.
Jay Papasan:
If I don’t know who to market to, who are my customers? Because everybody isn’t your customer. That’s the worst strategy ever.
Rory Vaden:
Worst. And people just go, “I just wanna reach a lot of people.” Where it’s like, “You need to know what words to use. You need to know where to post. You need to know how to price your offerings, exactly what they need, how you should dress, how you should talk.” Like everything becomes clear if you have a specific narrow who. If you do not, you will be shotgunning all over the place. That’s the biggest mistake. They’re not clear specifically on their who. And I can give the big hint. I can give the big shortcut if you want me to share it.
Jay Papasan:
If you’re willing to share it, let’s do it.
Rory Vaden:
Okay. So, like I said, it’s a two-day experience that we take people through. Here’s what we know now that we didn’t know when we started the company. We started to notice a pattern. And the pattern that we started to train our strategists, and this is what we got clear on, it was when we started training other strategists on our team to facilitate this, what we realized is that for all of us, every single person living, you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were.
Jay Papasan:
I’ve heard you say that before. That’s just like, it stops everybody in their tracks, ’cause then you go back to like, well, who was that person I once was.
Rory Vaden:
And so much becomes clear because you go, “I do know how to help that person.” So when you’re like, “What problem do I solve?,” you go, “What problems have I conquered?” Like what challenges have you conquered? What obstacles have you overcome? What setbacks have you survived? That is our greatest hint to where your uniqueness lies. Because it’s not about having a degree or media appearances or followers. It’s going, my credibility comes from the fact that I have walked down this path. I know how to do this.
This is why Brand Builders Group works, right? If someone is aspiring to become a speaker or an author or build their following, we’ve spent our whole career doing nothing but learning how to do that. I know their fears. I know their worries. I know the mistakes they’re gonna make. I know all the wrong people they’re gonna hire. I know how they’re gonna spend money on the wrong things at the wrong time. And I know all the shortcuts to go, “If you wanna do this one thing, we can help you. If you don’t wanna do this one thing, we’re not your people.” But we know that because it’s been my dream since middle school to be a speaker and a writer, an advisor.
Jay Papasan:
And you’ve had to do it twice because you did it once. And then in 2018, as we started this podcast, you got knocked all the way back down to zero.
Rory Vaden:
You’re exactly right. And we literally got knocked to zero. Like, had to start rebuild our whole audience and all that stuff.
Jay Papasan:
I love that. Okay. So-
Rory Vaden:
But the same is true for you listening, right now.
Jay Papasan:
So if you’re struggling with the who, we can maybe turn, look in the mirror a little bit.
Rory Vaden:
A lot of it.
Jay Papasan:
Right.
Rory Vaden:
Look in the mirror.
Jay Papasan:
What are the challenges that I’ve had to overcome?
Rory Vaden:
Who was I five years ago? What are the challenges I have overcome? What are the hardest things that I’ve ever made it through? Remember when we said earlier, we now know that your pain is the highest preparation for the purpose that you’re supposed to serve. And-
Jay Papasan:
I don’t know how you get to that without a coach, because so many of the toughest, most resilient people I know, the people who survive those challenges, when you ask them, they’ll just say, “Well, I had to,” right? They think of it almost in all shucks. Like we don’t give ourselves enough credit for overcoming the obstacles we’ve overcome.
Rory Vaden:
Yeah, and muster it up. It could be I have to, but like, I really think if you’re gonna design it, it should come from a place of service.
Jay Papasan:
Yes, but you serving the person that you once were, I just think a lot of people, that’s why I think having someone who’s coaching me through this, working with someone who’s can see it, like my coach is always saying, “You can’t read the label from inside the box.”
Rory Vaden:
That’s it, yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Right? I need some extra perspective because I do think that when people are internalizing, I find best position to serve the person I once was, do I have enough perspective to know the value of the journey I’ve actually been through?
Rory Vaden:
Amen. So a lot of our clients have imposter syndrome.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah.
Rory Vaden:
And they’re like, “Oh, well, I’m not-”
Jay Papasan:
What? Ed Millett?
Rory Vaden:
I’m not Ed Millett.
Jay Papasan:
Lewis Howes?
Rory Vaden:
I’m not-
Jay Papasan:
But they have imposter syndrome.
Rory Vaden:
Yeah, but everybody does. But it’s because they undervalue their own experience. They undervalue what they’ve been through. They’re not present to the fact that people all across the globe are struggling right now with the things that they have struggled with. The hardest things in your life happened and it had nothing to do with you other than preparing you to help the person you once were. That’s what we believe.
Jay Papasan:
I love that. All right. So, what is the problem I’m solving? One word.
Rory Vaden:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Who is it that I am-
Rory Vaden:
Passionate about serving.
Jay Papasan:
… passionate about serving? What’s number three?
Rory Vaden:
Yeah. So, what results do you have? And then, what have you researched, is number four. So, those kind of make up like, what have you earned the right to talk about? “Cause we have to pay attention to that, right?
Jay Papasan:
Yeah, are you valid yet?
Rory Vaden:
Yeah, you should have some substantiation to what you’re doing.
Jay Papasan:
Lewis came up and just through one conversation said, I can trust these people and I can trust them so much, I’m gonna help them spread the word.
Rory Vaden:
Yeah, well, it was… We spent a couple days together and we had built a relationship over years.
Jay Papasan:
He became your first big result though.
Rory Vaden:
Yes, he did. And Lewis, we can’t take credit for what any of our clients do, right? But the fact is, it took Lewis about eight years to get to 30 million downloads. After we had that conversation, he shut down all these revenue streams. He went all in on the podcast. The whole team got focused. They went from 30 million downloads in the next two and a half years to 500 million.
Jay Papasan:
Wow, that’s exponential.
Rory Vaden:
He failed at everything else he did. He shut down everything else he did. No one talks about that. They just go, Homeboy built one of the biggest podcasts in the world, the School of Greatness. Like just, it blew up and it looks like he’s blowing up. And it’s like, he had a small team of people relentlessly focused on one thing.
Jay Papasan:
I love that language. You’re preaching to us right now. All right, so how does research connect to that?
Rory Vaden:
Yeah, so that’s just what your bio is. And that also connects to who you’re meant to serve. It’s like, okay, what are the things you would study in your free time?
Jay Papasan:
I feel like you bring a lot of that to the table, because you say things like what we’ve learned, because you’re researching your own results and creating your own stats.
Rory Vaden:
Totally.
Jay Papasan:
Is that like an advanced playbook for people?
Rory Vaden:
I mean, maybe, but I mean, we do have a data science team and we analyze stuff like crazy. We invested a hundred thousand dollars in a national research study that we put together, right? Like we’re very nerdy data. I mean, it’s weird ’cause it’s like I said, we’re hardcore Bible thumping Jesus freaks and we’re also very data-driven, pragmatic, take-action people. But-
Jay Papasan:
But you’re trying to answer the question, why should I hire you?
Rory Vaden:
Yes, we’re trying to answer that question. Why should I hire you? And why can I trust that you actually know what you’re doing? And some of that is results because you’ve walked the path, right? Like we’ve helped 12 different authors become New York Times bestsellers in the last 15 months. I am a New York Times bestselling author, as are you. But it’s like, people can trust me because I have done it. It’s different. And that’s one of the things. You always go like-
Jay Papasan:
That’s why a lot of people write books though too. Isn’t that the research? I also wrote the book on this.
Rory Vaden:
Yeah, that’s part of it. Yeah, that helps a lot.
Jay Papasan:
Yeah.
Rory Vaden:
That helps a lot. So, it’s that. And then, when we try to figure out monetization.
Jay Papasan:
Okay. Is that step five?
Rory Vaden:
Five and six.
Jay Papasan:
How do I monetize? Okay.
Rory Vaden:
Yeah, so the Brand DNA Helix, the questions work in tandem, like chromosomes. So problem and passion go together. That’s to help us figure out what problem you solve. Research and results goes together, right? That’s about helping us figure out how you solve it and what your expertise is. And then, the last two questions, which is what would people buy from you and what business do you to be in? Those go together. And that’s how we talk about monetization strategy because, to us, personal branding is simply the formalization, digitization, and monetization of reputation.
So, it’s not really personal branding, we think about it as a reputation, but it’s just extending that into the online world, formalizing it, digitizing it, and monetizing it. So, monetization strategy is one of the things that we’re well-known for, because that’s where the title of the book comes from. It’s Wealthy and Well-known. So those are the two things we have to do for people.
Jay Papasan:
Do you have to become well-known before you become wealthy?
Rory Vaden:
It could be either way.
Jay Papasan:
It can be either way.
Rory Vaden:
It can be either way, but it’s usually one… it’s usually you don’t become wealthy and well-known at the same time. You usually become well-known first, and then we can show you how to turn that into wealth or you become wealthy first, and then we can show how to help you become more well-known.
Jay Papasan:
Well, I like the order you made. It makes for a good book title, Wealthy and Well-Known. I like it. The alliteration. So, you’ve got this process. So, you got the track record. You’ve lived it not once but twice. You’ve helped thousands of people, some of them my friends, build amazing personal brands and monetize it. And I think about all the professional services people. Like I don’t want to be Ed Millett.
Rory Vaden:
No.
Jay Papasan:
But I want in my market to be the attorney, the CPA, the estate planner, whatever it is I provide, the realtor.
Rory Vaden:
Chiropractors. Those are all of our clients.
Jay Papasan:
Right, I want to be the one that people think of when I solve the back pain. Two words I know, but I’m sure that you’re…
Rory Vaden:
Weight loss, yeah, back pain. They want to be the person in their category.
Jay Papasan:
Right. It’s crazy in real estate. We just showed the stats every single year and it gets smaller and smaller. The number of people that you interview before you hire someone in most fields is extraordinarily low. When it comes to services, people don’t do a lot of active shopping. They’re not interviewing you. Like in real estate, about 80% of people that meet with you, you’re gonna get the business.
Rory Vaden:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Eight out of 10.
Rory Vaden:
Wow.
Jay Papasan:
And almost 95% only talk to two. And everybody else is in that. So, like, one of the things we look at, personal brand, you’re doing all of the selling before they ever meet you.
Rory Vaden:
Totally.
Jay Papasan:
They’ve interviewed you on your YouTube channel, they’ve listened to you on your podcast, they read your book, you’ve been building trust and reputation.
Rory Vaden:
They feel like they know you before you’ve even met them.
Jay Papasan:
And they just need to verify, was all that stuff real?
Rory Vaden:
That’s it.
Jay Papasan:
Was all that stuff real before I met you? And I think it’s brilliant and it’s a long play, right? You’re playing a long game because you’re building all of this energy out there that helps when you get that magic moment, you get to sit down with someone and share your value proposition, they already know almost everything they need to know about you. They just want to verify it now.
Rory Vaden:
I went door to door in college, and I knocked on other people’s doors, and there’s a lot to learn from that. But what a brand does is it gets people to knock on your door. They show up ready to buy. It doesn’t mean they’re automatically necessarily buying, but it’s like, that’s why they’re there. And that’s what we want.
Jay Papasan:
Or when you knock on their door, they go, “You’re Rory.”
Rory Vaden:
Yeah, exactly.
Jay Papasan:
It’s not a stranger. It’s not cold. It’s warm now.
Rory Vaden:
And you can do that at scale. We often say that building a personal brand from a digital marketing strategy, all we’re trying to do is automate trust at scale.
Jay Papasan:
I love that ’cause that’s where my brain went, because people want to work with people they know, like, and trust. That old adage, whoever said it, I hope they made millions, because I think it’s true wisdom.
Rory Vaden:
It’s true.
Jay Papasan:
And when you have a personal brand out there that’s valid and authentic, they get to know you. And if they are the person you’re destined to serve, they’re probably gonna like you because they see something in there and then they begin to trust you. They start checking all of those box before you ever sit down to talk about your business.
Rory Vaden:
And this is the best content marketing strategy, right? Our content marketing strategy is teach everything you know for free, in all random order and in small bite-sized chunks, because people don’t pay for information, they pay for organization and application. But you don’t have to be scarce about what you’re sharing. Our goal is to share so much value that people show up and raise their hand when they’re ready to buy. But even if they don’t, we hopefully are changing their life anyways. And-
Jay Papasan:
That’s what we’re doing with this. People pay the most for outcomes, results.
Rory Vaden:
For results.
Jay Papasan:
And that’s part of your process.
Rory Vaden:
Absolutely.
Jay Papasan:
And when you teach people to deliver, that’s how they get to earn their highest income.
Rory Vaden:
But we want them to watch us on a podcast, follow us on social. In fact, this is the way we’re doing the book launch. We’re doing a one-day live virtual training, where they can do a full day with me. Normally, we would charge something significant, fairly significant for that. If they pre-order the book, so they can go to freebrandtraining.com/TOT, they can get a free ticket to spend an entire day and we’ll walk them through all these six questions and all the exercises.
Jay Papasan:
And knowing you, you’re gonna have like a million amazing people there to help you. LIke you and AJ, you’re gonna be adding on from all the people that you serve to.
Rory Vaden:
Yeah, I mean, we will make it super valuable, but because it’s like, it’s hard to listen to this and do it yourself. It’s kind of like you need to-
Jay Papasan:
Oh, I don’t trust that you could do it alone at all. I really do, like we used to talk about earlier, I think you need outside perspective and experience to help you because we just don’t have a good enough self-knowledge. So few people do really get to see ourselves truly because I believe we always look at ourselves and we color it with the our intentions
Rory Vaden:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Our intentions kind of blur the lens a little bit because we know what we meant to do and we don’t always see the actual results as they show up.
All right, so we’ve got to wrap this up. This has been super valuable. I’ll remind folks of where to go if they want to dive in and I’m going to be a part of that group. I’m going to go to that website and be a part of that and support your launch, because I believe in what you do.
Rory Vaden:
freebrandtraining.com/TOT.
Jay Papasan:
Slash TOT. I like to end every podcast with a challenge.
Rory Vaden:
I like that.
Jay Papasan:
They got seven days until the next episode drops, and they have another tiny, bite-sized challenge. What is something someone could do, like the first domino for starting this process? What’s one thing they could do between now and next week if they’re really wanting to go in on this to start making progress?
Rory Vaden:
I would literally encourage you to journal your response to the following questions. What challenges have I conquered? What obstacles have I overcome? What setbacks have I survived? What tragedies have I triumphed? Related to the space of business that you wanna be in. And if you go, “Who is the person I once was?” that’s where your biggest opportunity is because that’s the audience you can serve in the deepest way. So, I would just start with that question, right? Who is the person I once was? What challenges have I overcome? If you just ruminate on that a bit-
Jay Papasan:
You’ll start the process of clarity. You’ll be set up for success.
Rory Vaden:
You will.
Jay Papasan:
Rory, and please pass my congratulations on to AJ. I’m so excited for y’all’s first book together.
Rory Vaden:
Thank you.
Jay Papasan:
Thank you for pouring into our ONE Thing audience today.
Rory Vaden:
Oh man, it’s a pleasure. I’m so honored to be your friend and to be here after all these years. What an absolute blessing to be a part of your life, Jay. Thanks for having me.
Jay Papasan:
So, obviously, Rory and AJ have a lot to share. So if you want to find out more, definitely encourage you to check out their brand new book, Wealthy and Well-Known. It’s Rory and AJ Vaden. You can find it wherever you buy books. It’s coming out on July 1st, 2025. I’ve already pre-ordered my copy. I definitely wanna continue learning for them and figuring out exactly how to master this personal branding game and how we build an audience that we can later serve.
Love the idea that the people we’re best positioned to serve are actually ourselves in the past. That’s definitely how it was for them. They had to pivot. The process they learned actually is the process that they actually serve to their clients today.
So, let’s talk about next week. Next week, we’re gonna do an episode on the reset process that we teach at The ONE Thing. We’re coming up to the end of the second quarter. Guess what? You got two quarters to go. This is a great chance to look up and ask, how am I doing this year? Where is it I really wanna go? Re-evaluate your goals, narrow your focus, and you’ve still got enough runway between now and the end of the year to hit the big goals that matter. So, no matter how far you feel behind, next week will be a great episode to get back on track, get refocused and hit the restart button.
Disclaimer:
This podcast is for general informational purposes only. The views, thoughts and opinions of the guest represent those of the guest and not ProduKtive or Keller Williams Realty LLC and their affiliates, and should not be construed as financial, economic, legal, tax, or other advice. This podcast is provided without any warranty or guarantee of its accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or results from using the information.
