34:09Tom Noske · Essay
I'm Begging You to Build a Personal Brand Like This
Thirty-four minutes on an iPad whiteboard arguing that a memorable brand is built from associations, context and a delivery system, not better content.
October 5thThe argument in one line.
A brand is not the content you publish, it is the expectation that forms in someone's head the moment they hear your name, and until you can answer what that expectation is, you will look like everyone else selling the same thing.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- A founder doing real revenue under a company name nobody can picture, who suspects the faceless brand is capping what the business can attract.
- A coach or course creator whose content gets saved and shared but never converts, because every post is a breakdown of a pathway instead of a position.
- Someone three to twelve months into posting who is already bored of their own message and about to change it for the wrong reason.
- A founder who films and edits everything themselves and cannot work out why the first editor they hired keeps missing the mark.
- Anyone who has watched a post with 34 likes outperform a post with 40,000 views on actual sales and wants to know why that happens.
SKIP IF…
- You want a posting schedule, a hook formula, or a template. This conversation argues explicitly against giving you one.
- You are optimising for reach and follower count as the goal rather than as a side effect.
- You need hard numbers and case studies. The evidence here is two practitioners describing what they observed, not data.
The full version, fast.
Most founders think starting to post means starting a brand. It does not. A brand is the set of expectations that fires in someone's head when they hear your name, and if you cannot state yours, neither can your market. The chain runs: dig the story out of a hardship you actually lived, state a vision dense enough that talent and customers fall into its orbit, then publish principles and perspectives rather than step-by-step pathways, because a pathway solves one person's problem once while a principle keeps paying out for years. Record the longest piece first and cut it down. Repeat the same message far longer than feels comfortable, since you hear your own ideas twenty times more often than your audience does. Judge quality by who you attracted, not by view count. And when a hire underdelivers, the missing piece is usually a picture of the outcome you never showed them.
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Create a free account →Who's talking.
01:29hostNik Setting
00:00guestAamer Jan Bay
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 01:40
01 · Cold open
The guest introduces himself: bulimia, anxiety and derealization, then neuropsychology, philosophy, Jung and Buddhist thought as the route out of self-sabotage.
01:40 – 07:16
02 · Buying the founder before the offer
Why he bought into The Standard before he had met Nik, and why drinks brands like Monster and Red Bull leave a disconnect a named founder does not.
07:16 – 11:19
03 · Vision works like gravity
The rubber-sheet model of a gravitational well applied to a founder: the denser the conviction, the more talent and customers fall into orbit without being chased.
11:19 – 16:38
04 · Your hardship is the story
You do not need the whole path mapped, you need a hardship you actually endured. The two reasons people will not tell it: fear of judgment, and comparing their story to someone else's.
16:38 – 22:52
05 · A pivot is a process, not a statement
People treat a pivot as an announcement. It is a slow change you are already making, and a founder brand is what lets you make it without losing the audience.
22:52 – 28:29
06 · Short timelines make bad decisions
A monetary goal forces short-term decisions. Drop it and you think in decades, which is why the money shows up. Darwin as the example of work that could not sit on a calendar.
28:29 – 36:33
07 · Obsession, and why a podcast exposes you
Real obsession keeps the unconscious loaded with ideas so ideation stops being work. Long unscripted conversation is the format that cannot be faked without expertise underneath it.
36:33 – 42:05
08 · Drop the expected outcome and you'll tell the truth
Running a 25-person mastermind with no plan on purpose. Once you stop optimising for the audience's approval, the answers get truthful, and the truthful answers are the clips people share.
42:05 – 48:08
09 · Give people a principle, not a path
The turn of the whole conversation. You cannot solve anyone's problem because problems are individual. Hand over a principle and different people extract different applications from the same container.
48:08 – 1:00:54
10 · Repetition, longest-form-first, and your own boredom
Principles retain an audience where pathways need constant new people. Record the longest piece and cut it down. You get bored of your idea roughly ten times faster than your audience ever will.
1:00:54 – 1:14:38
11 · Quality is subjective, and you attract what you focus on
A 34-like tweet that keeps producing buyers, the football-stadium model of 50,000 views, and the month they spent 90 percent of their attention on colour grading and got complimented on colour grading.
1:14:38 – 1:19:10
12 · Changing your message is not starting over
People think a new message means a new audience. It does not, because the audience bought the founder. Then the hard line: creating content and building a brand are two different activities, and brand gets defined.
1:19:10 – 1:30:12
13 · Aligning a team around the vision
Anyone on the team can state exactly what the founder wants. Why people with their own brands and eight-figure exits still choose to work under someone, and why the first year should be goodwill rather than selling.
1:30:12 – 1:37:37
14 · Letting go of control
Delegation as cold water you have to stay in. The first handoff goes badly, you want to take it back, and the bandwidth only appears if you do not. Conceptual understanding versus the kind you only get by living it.
1:37:37 – 1:42:40
15 · Followers, problem solvers, and it's always the founder
Two kinds of hire, both starting with zero context. Three months of blaming a creative director before realising he had never shown him the picture in his head.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- A brand is the thought process and the beliefs that fire in someone's head the moment they hear your name, not the content sitting on your profile.
- Your brand begins the day you post something you know some people will hate, and most people never reach that day.
- If your message is neutral enough to satisfy everyone, it is the reason nobody can tell you apart from your competition.
- The best content gives people a principle or a perspective, because a pathway is one puzzle piece that fits one slot and a principle gets reused for years.
- Breakdowns force you to keep acquiring new people, since the same person cannot consume the same pathway twice.
- You hear your own ideas roughly twenty times more often than the average person in your audience does, which is why repetition feels stale to you long before it registers with them.
- Record the longest piece of content first and cut it down, instead of shooting four separate formats and burning out.
- As long as the goal is a monthly revenue number, the decisions it produces are short-term, and the money arrives slower.
- Obsession only attaches to scarce things, which is why time produces it and money never quite does.
- A pivot is not a statement you make on a Tuesday, it is a process you are already running every day you learn something.
- Fifty thousand views is a full football stadium of people, and converting one percent of it gives you five hundred customers.
- What you spend your production attention on is the thing your audience will compliment you for, so colour grading gets you an audience that likes your colours.
- Changing your message does not cost you your audience, because they bought the founder and not the message.
- A long-form podcast is the hardest format to fake, because nobody can carry two unscripted hours on a topic they have not actually lived.
- When an editor keeps missing, the usual cause is that nobody ever showed them a picture of the finished thing.
- People in a team split into followers who execute instructions and problem solvers who find their own route, and both still start with zero context about your vision.
Brand is the expectation, content is just the evidence
WHAT TO LEARN
Posting consistently builds a body of content, but a brand only exists once people can predict what you stand for before they open anything you made.
02Buying the founder before the offer
- A named founder converts because buyers stop asking what you will sell next and start asking what you will build, which survives a change of product.
- A faceless company can sell well and still fail to transfer that trust to a second offer or to a hire choosing where to work.
03Vision works like gravity
- Conviction behaves like mass: the clearer and heavier the stated vision, the more talent and customers arrive without being chased.
- People who already have their own brands and their own exits will still join someone whose vision is denser than their current one.
- You do not need the whole route mapped to state a vision, you need to know what you stand for and what advantage you hold.
04Your hardship is the story
- Every founder who got anywhere has a hardship that converts into a story, and the two things blocking it are fear of judgment and comparing your story to someone else's.
- Audiences detect fabricated intent quickly, so a story you are performing costs more credibility than a smaller story told straight.
05A pivot is a process, not a statement
- A pivot is a process already running, not an announcement, so the fear of declaring one is mostly imaginary.
- A community that believes in the founder follows across categories, which is what removes you from direct competition.
06Short timelines make bad decisions
- Set a revenue number as the goal and the decisions it produces are rash and short-dated, which is exactly why the money comes slower.
- Obsession attaches to scarce things, so time produces it and money, being unlimited, never quite does.
07Obsession, and why a podcast exposes you
- Real depth of knowledge keeps your unconscious loaded with material, which makes idea generation stop feeling like work.
- A long unscripted conversation is the format that cannot be faked, because nobody carries two hours on a subject they have not lived.
- Communication is only the delivery layer, so polish without expertise underneath reads as forcing step two before step one.
08Drop the expected outcome and you'll tell the truth
- Drop the expected outcome of a talk or a post and you will say the truthful thing, which is reliably the part people clip.
- Answers people did not want to hear outperform satisfying ones, because the discomfort is what signals you are not managing them.
09Give people a principle, not a path
- You cannot solve anyone's problem from a distance, because problems are individual, so a universal pathway fits almost nobody exactly.
- A principle is a large container different people reach into differently, while a solution is a small one that fits a narrow few.
- Changing how someone thinks creates a stronger attachment than handing them steps, and it is why certain creators feel addictive.
10Repetition, longest-form-first, and your own boredom
- Pathway content forces you to keep buying new attention, because the same person cannot consume the same route twice.
- Repeating one message is what builds trust, not what exhausts it, and founders hear their own ideas about twenty times more often than their audience does.
- Record the longest piece first and cut it down, which saves production time and pushes an identical message from several angles.
11Quality is subjective, and you attract what you focus on
- View count is the wrong quality signal: posts with 34 likes keep producing buyers years later while high-reach posts produce nobody.
- Optimising a hook for reach quietly trades away the long-term position you were trying to build.
- Fifty thousand monthly views is a football stadium of people, and one percent of it is five hundred potential customers.
- Whatever you spend production attention on is what your audience will compliment you for, so colour grading earns you an audience that likes colours.
12Changing your message is not starting over
- Changing your message does not restart your audience, because they bought the founder and the message was only the current expression of it.
- A message vague enough to be liked by everyone is the specific reason nobody can distinguish you from your competitors.
- A brand is what fires in someone's head when they hear your name, and if you cannot state yours, your market certainly cannot.
13Aligning a team around the vision
- Ambiguity about the vision inside a team is as expensive as ambiguity in the market, and clarity is what makes people repeat the same answer about where you are going.
- An audience built in the first year should be given value rather than sold to, because goodwill is what the later offer draws against.
14Letting go of control
- Delegation feels like cold water and the first handoff usually goes badly, so the bandwidth only appears if you stay in long enough.
- Conceptual understanding and lived understanding are different things, which is why advice about letting go lands only after you have tried it.
15Followers, problem solvers, and it's always the founder
- Hires split into followers who execute and problem solvers who find their own route, and both arrive with zero context on your vision.
- When a creative hire keeps missing, the usual cause is that nobody ever showed them a picture of the finished thing, not that they are the wrong hire.
Terms worth knowing.
- Founder brand
- A business whose public identity is attached to a named human rather than a logo. The practical effect is that the audience follows the person across offers, categories and pivots instead of buying one product.
- Faceless brand
- A company presented purely as a product or logo with no identifiable person behind it. It can still sell well, but it cannot transfer trust to a new offer or recruit people who want to work for a specific founder.
- Identity thermostat
- The idea that your outer circumstances, money, body, relationships, keep returning to a level set by your unconscious self-beliefs. Change the underlying beliefs and the outer world drifts to the new setting.
- ICP
- Ideal customer profile. The specific type of buyer a business is built to serve, used here as shorthand for whether the people following you are the ones who could actually buy.
- Closer
- The person on a sales team who runs the final conversation and takes payment, as distinct from a setter who books the appointment.
- Setter
- The person who makes first contact with a lead and books them into a call with a closer.
- Principle content
- Content that hands the audience a reusable way of thinking rather than a sequence of steps, so different people can extract different applications from the same piece.
- Pathway content
- Content that lays out a specific step-by-step route to a specific result. Useful once, to the narrow group whose situation matches, and dead afterwards.
Things they pointed at.
00:00productThe Standard (formerly Grow Acquisition)
01:59channelDan Koe
08:54productAlex Hormozi workshop, Las Vegas
01:00bookCarl Jung, analytical psychology
25:28bookCharles Darwin and the theory of evolution
1:03:41toolTweetPic, for converting Twitter posts to Instagram format
1:34:53channelChris Williamson on unteachable lessons
1:25:26productPatagonia
1:25:55productNike
1:26:23productSteve Jobs and the Apple reality distortion field
Lines you could clip.
1:16:57
“People believe that when they start to create content, they start to build their personal brand. Which is so bullshit. You create content. That has nothing to do with the fact that you create your brand.”
1:17:26
“Brand is the thought process and the beliefs that people have the moment they hear your name.”
1:16:13
“Your personal brand begins only the day that you post something you know people will hate. And there are so many people who never even reach that day.”
42:09
“The best content isn't showing people the path. The best way to create content is by talking about perspectives and principles.”
56:15
“Founders hear their own thoughts twenty times more than the average person in their audience does.”
23:39
“Money just has this profound way of finding excellence. It's not that you find the money.”
26:22
“True obsession can only be created from the things that are scarce. Money is unlimited. But time is scarce. You know you'll die one day.”
1:08:15
“Go to a football stadium, watch a football match, and you'll see all these people. That is the exact amount of people that watched your content in four weeks. You just need one percent of these people to believe in you.”
1:10:37
“We spent ninety percent of our attention on how good it looks. And the feedback we got was, I see how much time Nick spends on production. Customers still bought. They bought for the wrong reasons.”
1:15:14
“You don't want to be liked by everyone. That's the worst thing. The reason you ask yourself why can't I stand out, it's because you're neutral.”
31:04
“People see through you, especially in a podcast. You get someone on who doesn't know their shit, you're cooked.”
1:42:05
“Maybe it's me. It's always you. It's always the founder at the end of the game.”
1:18:23
“Nobody gives a fuck about the program. People get it because of the coach.”
1:24:01
“If you built an audience in the first year, you shouldn't be selling absolutely nothing. You should just be providing value.”
Where the conversation goes.
00:00 – 11:19denseWhy a named founder beats a faceless brand
11:19 – 22:52denseFinding the story and the vision underneath it
22:52 – 36:33steadyTime horizons and obsession
36:33 – 42:05steadyTruth-telling as a content strategy
42:05 – 48:08densePrinciples versus pathways
48:08 – 1:14:38denseProduction: repetition, long-form-first, quality
1:14:38 – 1:19:10denseBrand definition and message changes
1:19:10 – 1:42:40steadyTeam, delegation and alignment
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metaphoranalogystory
Where did it all begin? Yeah, so there was a point in my life where I had been struggling with a lot of my own issues. I used to be bulimic.
I used to have sort of crippling anxiety and paranoia and derealization. And I noticed that there was this pattern in my life where I would continue to sort of just regress to this interesting mean that was just so prevalent within my life. And no matter what I did, I couldn't really push past this ceiling in my life.
And so I began to study neuropsychology. So I studied neuropsychology for three years and then I wanted to study more than just neuroscience and psychology so I went to philosophy. Study philosophy for, I mean now I have my dual major actually in neuropsychology and philosophy from school and been studying each for quite a while now and alongside that I've been studying analytical psychology from Carl Jung.
Obviously guys Nick knows this but just so you guys know. and Buddhist thought as well, Buddhist and Taoist thought, but a lot of Buddhist thought. I've been practicing meditation and contemplative, or just engaging in contemplative practice for a good period of time now, and I've sort of brought all those things together, and I think I've figured out how to overcome this thing that we call self -sabotage, or this regression into this temperature that we find ourselves sort of always falling back to.
So, yeah, man. Really excited to talk. I believe that you have a very interesting story.
And I also believe that a lot of people can get a lot of inspiration from your story. When did you realize it was important for you to share your story with the world? Yeah.
I think something that I realized about you and actually another creator, Dan Coe, and this is kind of what inclined me to work with you. And just having... I mean, you were really good at telling your story.
That's one thing that I really noticed about you. And not just your story, but also your ideological viewpoints just about everything in the world. It was very clear that...
It was interesting because I almost... I felt like I knew who you were before I actually started working with you. I remember actually telling a very good friend of mine, Tori.
She's my closer now. And just a very good friend. And I remember telling her...
I remember her telling me actually, funny enough, because she saw your brand as well. She's like, I think you and Nick are going to be very good friends. And I also had this weird instinctual feeling that I thought I was going to be good friends with you too.
And I mean, look at us now, right? Like we are good friends. And the only reason why I even bought into the standard and I mean, once known as Grow Acquisition.
and I'm excited to talk about that too, that transition, it's very cool, was because I felt like I knew you. And I think this goes to the importance of this thing, this notion that you've, and this recurring motif that you've now surfaced a lot while I've been here in Cannes, France, this idea of the founder brand and the importance of just having, because, so, I mean, there's obviously so many things to talk about here, but one thing I want to surface.
and sort of point towards first is these companies like Monster and let's say Red Bull and let's say just drink companies in general, you don't have this, there's this ambiguity, this word that I was talking to you about, this cloudiness around the brand, right? You don't know who, they're not as personal and there's... As good as these brands can be, there's still this interesting disconnect that you feel.
But as soon as there is, and this is something that I've learned from you, as soon as there is a face to attach to the brand, suddenly so many things begin to click in the buyer's mind. But what's also interesting is buyers don't even feel like buyers anymore. They just feel like they're a part of your community, which is another thing.
that I was thinking about at your mastermind, which is when you do have a founder brand, when you do have your own name that is attached to anything, you no longer have a sort of customer base. You actually have almost like an ideological community of people that you're speaking to, that know you, and that will move and transition with you.
into sort of, into... Any direction. Yes.
Any direction you want to steer them into, whether that's talent, opportunities, customers. Exactly. Yeah, and this is like, this is huge, right?
If Elon Musk were to restart, he's not restarting from zero, right? If Steve Jobs was still alive. But if Steve Jobs were to restart, he's not restarting from zero.
He has this entire... I mean, just this history and not only this history, this brand behind him, right? And no matter, this is also really quite, I mean, this just sort of sprung up from the unconscious, but people no longer ask, and this is something that I found myself sort of noticing when I was consuming your content and just certain people's content who haven't found a brand, is the question no longer becomes, what is this person going to sell next?
or what are they trying to sell me next? The question is rather, what are they going to build? And I just want to be a part of it.
I just want to see what they're going to build. And this is something that I feel with you and with The Standard, where I genuinely, and I really mean this, bro, and I'm proud of you for this, but it's very cool for me to feel the sense of excitement around The Standard as well. I don't know where it's going to go, but I know it's going to go very far.
And it's very cool. And it's, again, this just comes from the founder, the founder brand, right? Like I know who you are and I know what you stand for.
And there is this, there's this coherence and there's this conviction around what you want to do. And there's a clarity where, I mean, the way that I kind of view it and the way that I view you and any person with a very strong founder brand. And luckily I've been able to create that because of you.
I think I have a very incredibly strong community to the point where if I just post like once every, let's say 10 days. I'll get like 800 likes and like 800 comments, right? On a post that I don't even intend to go viral at all.
And the comments and likes will be almost equal for like something like a CTA. That's how powerful a brand like this can be. And also adds a sense of safety.
But back to what I was saying. Something I was thinking about was in physics, when people want to sort of visualize what a gravitational field looks like, you kind of just get this like rubber mat or sheet. And then you put a marble in it and the marble drops down, right?
And , right? There's this well. And this goes to something that you were telling me about, which is not only do you have a stronger audience and more capability to do with the things that you can sort of sell to an audience, but in the people that you attract as well, right?
And the talent that you can hire, right? And this is something that many people who have worked with you have been saying, like Max, your videographer, and Louis, and Chris, your COO and your setter, and Herman, where the way that I view it is the more sort of conviction there is and the more coherence there is and the more clarity there is in the end around a certain vision, right, around that founder, the deeper the well gets.
And something important to understand about gravity and and just like objects within must say the solar system is the heavier they become the more they begin to interfere with other things right the Sun for example is very heavy it drops into this well and as a result the earth begins to sort of spin around it right and and this is this is the exact same idea I see with the founder brand where the stronger the brand and the stronger the the These sort of convictions one has and what they stand for and the more like the more clarity there is The deeper that well and the more you begin to interfere with these people around you right suddenly You've just attracted someone like max right one of the best probably the best videographer I've ever seen in person Just suddenly begins to fall into your orbit Exactly right and and importantly is like It's just as a result of becoming so substantial and dense that the Earth just falls into orbit.
And Max has his own brand. That's the crazy thing. He is someone who had...
He doesn't need to work with you. He didn't need to work with you. I was at the Hormozy workshop in Las Vegas.
And it's this exact same idea. I got the same idea from you, which is a lot of the people who work under Hormozy at acquisition .com have exited eight figure companies. Eight -figure companies.
They don't need to fucking work there. They're chilling. They're there just because Hormozy's vision is so substantial that they just want to be there.
Let's reflect on a couple of things because you mentioned it at the point where you talked about Max, but you mentioned it before as well. You mentioned you believe in the founder and you understand the vision, even though the vehicle of getting there is not completely clear. And that's okay, because even for me, what I'm gonna do to build the standard in the upcoming 10 years, every single step of the process isn't clear for me.
But you still believe in it, and you still know that's gonna work out. And every single person in my team still has 100 ,000 % conviction that's gonna work out. And that is the first step of building a founder brand.
Because... you don't need to have every single part of the process figured out but as long as the vision is there when you understand what you stand for when you know how to create a competitive advantage and when you have a level of expertise or when you have a story to share that is valuable you have something that others don't have you have the same which is very interesting what would you say to those who have unclarity in the path of figuring that out or what they should ask themselves to know how to get through that first phase.
Because it's genuinely the first step of the process of positioning that you need to understand before you ever create content, before you ever build a media team, before you ever get a team like... Yeah, I think that's a really good question, actually. I like this one a lot.
I think something that is interesting is any founder or any person that has achieved any modicum of success has experienced some sort of suffering or hardship, right? This is number one. And that can be sort of converted or translated into a story of some sort.
And so for those who are watching this, ask yourself, what are the hardships that you've endured in life? And if you haven't endured any, go do shit.
Go figure it out. Go figure out what you want to do. Go put your feet in the water.
That's interesting to reflect on that. authenticity is the only way you'll win because that's the only matter of how you can position yourself to stand out from the rest of the competition and there are two reasons of why people don't do that because they're too afraid to share their true story yeah because it comes too close so when they share their own story there's so much fear there's so much trauma that they're afraid to share that vision because of judgment and the second reason is they might believe it's not good enough They might believe that their story is not valuable enough because they start to compare it with other people.
But story is subjective. It never has a point. And because of that, you technically don't take the action to do it, which is preventing you from being authentic because you believe that another story is more valuable.
And you try to take things from other people constantly, which is why you built an... Brand that is not completely authentic. Yeah, and it's hard for people, you know, like, you know, honestly like when I started with my brand even in the beginning I Sometimes felt like I was playing I was playing a character because I had a hard time sharing who I really was and I was fearful to share everything about me online and that's very painful and it's very difficult and throughout repetition you feel like that you're playing a certain character and I wasn't self -aware about the fact that I was doing that You see where I'm coming from?
And I believe that a lot of people go through that phase. What is your view on that? Yeah, I mean, well, what's interesting is it was as soon as you became more authentic with your content, it's interesting where the people can feel the authenticity behind, and I will go back to that original question, but just a slight digression.
People, it's very interesting where people can feel, there's something about authentic energy and intention, this word intention that I love, that you kept, sort of using intention, intention, intention, it's very hard to have something that can move people in a way if the intention isn't authentic, right? If it doesn't come from an authentic place.
When you're posting something, when you're speaking about your story, again, if there's a fear, number one is if the story is fabricated, right? If it's just not real, people, it's very interesting. I mean, number one is...
people who are watching this can immediately or hopefully sense that both of us are there is a level of authenticity to both of us right and that we've actually just endured and we there is there's really not much that we're hiding here we we tell our stories we've shown the world the things that we've suffered through and in doing so there is this level of resonance that you build with your community as well and so back to this original question right One thing that I said was, yeah, you need to go do shit and you need to go endure hardship.
But the other thing is there's always, and like you said, a lot of people are afraid that, oh, I haven't endured enough hardship or I haven't gone through enough yet. I don't think that's necessarily always true. And I do think that people often downplay their worth and their stories.
And I think it's very sad as well, right? Even in your community calls, it's very interesting to see how people think that there's this massive difference between people like us and people like them, right? That they must have this thing.
And oftentimes they have it, but they haven't tapped into that, into whatever that was, perhaps because of fear, because they might not want to actually look into those parts of their past. But yes, to create a story around that and to create a story around themselves. And I think, but this key thing of what is the struggle, right?
And this goes to any, this goes to the things that we develop and give to people. Is it always came from something that we had to deal with ourselves, that we overcame. And then we just, and to be able to weave that into some sort of coherent story is what provides, again, this, this, this, immunity to like master distribution this is another sort of uh thing that i want to that i've sort of that's surfaced in listening to you more recently which is there's people are so many people are selling the same things right many people are selling the exact same things and when you have that founder brand and When when you have a sort of identity attached to whatever it is you no longer competing with any you're not competing with anyone anymore There's there's no more competition correct right and you it's and it goes back to this idea where you can just shift and pivot as much as you want and you have an entire fucking community that's just rallying behind you
And they're like, yeah, Nick's going to fucking do a jet company. Okay, let's go fly on Nick's jets. Or Nick's going to do, let's say, like an energy drink.
Let's go drink Nick's energy drink. It always follows. And this is the immunity that develops only when you have that founder brand.
But again, and to come back to that. One valuable thing, I think, and I talked about this with the team here actually yesterday afternoon, is pivot. a lot of people think about making a pivot whether that's attracting a different audience whether that's transitioning into their 100 million dollar that is transitioning their niche into their 100 million dollar brand to whatever but it doesn't matter the point just pivot in general everybody in life has external and internal pivots right but a pivot is seen as a statement a pivot is seen as i do something right now and i'm going to do something different from tomorrow But a pivot isn't a change.
It's a change over time that takes time. It's a process You're pivoting every day because you're learning you're growing Which is which is very interesting to realize because the point that you make is very very valuable. I sometimes ask myself the question I Say one thing it's like an audience isn't people who watch you It's people who know you'd never stop And where that comes from is what you said in the beginning you believe that the standard is gonna be a big company Because of the founders name.
Yes, even though you don't know the exact vehicle to the exact destination. Yeah. Yeah, but Throughout the process you'll make pivots to get to the destination.
Yeah, and In all honesty, one fear that I had as well to make this pivot that I'm doing now. I'm playing with my hands.
You're flipping me off. Oh, really? Yeah.
Okay, good. Go on.
No, but one thing that's genuinely interesting, and I was kind of fearful for this in the beginning. Wait, look at my hands. Okay, sorry.
Here I go. One thing. We can keep this in.
It's funny. One thing. that I was fearful of in the beginning is...
This is a bit... Wait, okay, okay, wait. Okay, we'll be fine, we'll be fine.
The interesting thing is time frame, it's a process that takes time and that's the pivot you make. And when you're growing and you're constantly moving internally and externally, you're pivoting. Yes.
So a pivot technically never has an end destination as long as you keep improving. Right. Because you're constantly pivoting.
But most people see a pivot as a statement. And the reason why that's so valuable is because, as I said, an audience is people notice you'd never stop. And what does make people notice you'd never stop?
It's a vision. Right. Yes.
And it's like that gravitational well, right? Exactly. Because that's why Max is my creative director.
That's why Louis is my CEO. That is why Chris is my... They just want to be there.
It's really cool. They want to be there because they see the vision of the standard. And they understand that the founder's name based on what I've built up in the past and my experience and my knowledge and...
is the reason why they have the conviction and the fact that this works. And that is the first step in the first place. And that's a very interesting concept because then we see that the full cycle becomes a full moon.
It recycles back to the main point. Yeah, and to what you were saying, I mean, two things. One is this idea when somebody rallies for themselves, people will begin to rally for you, right?
And it's clear when you say this word vision where... When you are so convicted in your own vision and so sure that this is whatever it is that you want to do, that it's going to happen. It's very interesting where people, it just creates this well, right?
It's this, you create this very dense ball of energy where everything that surrounds it just falls into place and just begins to orbit and orbit and orbit. And the denser that vision is, the greater the people, I mean, first of all, and this is interesting, where the denser the vision is, the denser the objects around it begin to, you know, like the planet Jupiter, this very largest planet in the solar system, right?
You have like multiple Jupiters now because your vision has become so dense. It's become larger than the sun, let's say, where now you have people like Max as a Jupiter, right? And then you have sort of Lewis, like a Saturn.
Yes. And just... Beginning to orbit you and so yes this idea of vision and making it clear, right?
I think this is something that's also that I I've a huge takeaway from all of this is to Make your vision clear to your to your team to your audience because people because people want to know and people like to know and to give them some sort of especially with your team to like I just hearing Lewis talk and hearing max talk about why they're along with you the the recurring motif and theme was nick just has this vision that's so clear and i just want to we just want to be there right like lewis worked at where was goldman sachs was it jp morgan jp morgan yeah and like that's that's that's that's very like high standing right and like for him to fall into orbit you must have had again he saw the vision and he felt it and the vision that you had was again just so substantial that people again just fell into orbit that's number one and the second thing i wanted to mention was this idea of pivoting and we were meant we were talking about this in the car where you you were saying like it's it's on this time frame where you're just there's this constant change and there's no direct statement and also naturally the time frame on which you make on which you
the decisions that you make within your company absolutely massive it's huge it's huge right because like again if i have the gold a short -term goal right now let's say just doing like 350k next month or 500k next month the decisions that i'm going to make might be very rash they might get me there right i could just spam story sequences and i could spam content they might get me there but again what does that actually do in the long term versus yeah go on and the reflection that i've seen most if people have a monetary goal their goal is most likely short -term Yes, I love that you said this.
As long as they remove the monetary aspect of things, they'll desire to think long term, which is the reason why they make more money. Exactly. Because their goal is not the money.
Their goal is to actually create longevity in the business that they have. Yes. Which is the reason why they are substantially more impactful.
They're making better decisions and they take better action. Yes, and as a byproduct, the money comes. A lot more money comes, if you think like that.
It's very interesting. There was this quote. I might be paraphrasing a little bit here, but , right?
Money finds excellence. It's not that you find the money. It's when you become an excellent person, right?
An anomalous person who has achieved that very high standing in whatever it is, level of expertise, a high level of expertise. Naturally, money will just, again, you create this well, this very, very dense. state of energy where everything flows into it not only people not only customers and not only people that you can work with but money as well right and so and yeah i love that you responded to a person's question in your mastermind when he mentioned a monetary goal because you asked him like what are your goals and it was it's such a clarifying question right you immediately can tell what someone's whether where someone stands on on a calendar As soon as he said, yeah, I don't know what it was, 100K or 200K per month, he said some sort of number.
And in my head, you were sitting at the front and I was sitting on the side. And in my head, right away, I had that same internal monologue of he's on the short term. And that's the first thing you said, right?
You just told him straight to his face. It's like it's a short. As long as the goal is monetary, you're just going to fall short.
right i drink this because of emmer like he got me on this yeah it's new it's new yeah yeah i've i've converted converted it's like this is like i've never drank this in my life yeah i know like this is like crazy it's a drug it's literally a drug i know i'm telling you um but yeah this and uh there was one more thing i wanted to mention yes right a perfect example of this and someone that I like to mention when it comes to short -term and long -term goals is Charles Darwin, the person who sort of materialized the theory of evolution.
This guy didn't have on a set date that I'm going to figure out why these birds look like each other by September 30th of whatever day, right? It was his life's work. And if something is your life's work, that by definition means it can't be on a calendar because it's your life's fucking work.
It's your life's work, right? And it was the same thing with Charles Darwin, right? He founded evolution because there was not this sort of arbitrary goal of setting it on a certain short -term timeframe or that he needs to sort of make a certain amount of money from his theory.
It was just, it was something that he had been so devoted to and he had this vision, right? He just had, he had this vision and obsession with what he was doing that naturally the theory of evolution just surfaced, right? And it's...
Yeah, the same idea and something that I've taken away as well. It's interesting because sometimes I think about this process. True obsession can only be created from the things that are scarce.
And the reason why that is is because money is unlimited. So you never truly feel fulfillment or obsession around creating it because you know there's not enough of it. That's very interesting.
You see what I mean? Wow, that's very interesting. But time is scarce.
You'll know you'll die one day. you'll also always associate the duration of something or want to get things done quick or one of the things that with speed because you know that there's scares which is why there's a level of obsession to it right i reflect it like that all the time it's like very interesting yeah that is it's a very interesting process yeah yeah i don't really have much to say to that that's very i haven't thought about that but that's very interesting to think that yeah the reason why Because it is interesting.
Why is obsession created? Because one thing that is very interesting, a lot of people tell me all the time, Nick, I can just genuinely see that you're passionate about what you do. With you, that's neuropsychology, right?
For me, that's brand. And I can speak about this for fucking 20 hours a day. Oh, yeah.
Right? Even us, we can have amazing conversations. We can sit here for four hours now.
And we can have the most valuable... piece of an asset online yeah and it's just a natural fucking it's like a natural conversation with zero script no pro because we are naturally obsessed with what we do yeah and one interesting thing is some people try to project to say something or be someone that they aren't which is why it can naturally reflect on content and before i want to go into team with you because i find it very interesting to see how do you hire talent build a media team or create provision of a team around you as a founder of a brand to have the ability to eliminate yourself.
How does content play a role into translating this vision, this story, everything that we just spoke about in the last 30 minutes, 45 minutes, to actually practically creating content? Yes. So, I mean, I think you said it very well, right?
When you are naturally obsessed with something, And I love how much you love it. It's so good.
It's so good. I know. It's incredible.
Yeah, one of those a day for me. But yes, so like you said, when you have this ability to talk about something for 20 fucking hours, as you say, right? There is going first of all the the content ideation process is going to be very natural, right?
It's going you're just going to have this again Your unconscious mind something that I speak about a lot is almost just saturated with ideas where like and you talk about this too, right? Where you just on planes you'll take time. I'll never forget one of your stories You love the quiet in planes because you can just ideate idea and some of your best ideas come from being just in a silent And the reason why is because your brain has something to chew on.
Which is also why, very interestingly, boredom isn't always good for everyone because some people just don't have anything to chew on. And as soon as you have something to chew on, as soon as you have an obsession, your brain will naturally gravitate towards that. So when I go on walks, all I'm thinking about is how neuroscience and analytical psychology are overlapping and I'm fucking having all these ideas, I'm writing them down on my phone.
Because you have something to chew on. Exactly. Your brain just wants it.
That's super true. yes and so and as a byproduct it that translates into there's so many things that i want to talk about here because it was really good what you just said so number one is this this will make the content ideation process a lot easier, with or without AI, right?
Because again, you and I use AI very similar. The raw ideas come from us, right? AI is simply just a tool.
And something that Dan Coe says that is, I think, very true is AI makes dumb people dumber and smart people smarter, right? Because dumb people just don't want to use any fucking part of their brain. And so they let AI do all the heavy lifting.
But then the smart people who have the raw ideas themselves, who are naturally obsessed, who are chewing on these ideas, and they feed it into AI, it's now like this, almost this mental sparring partner. An amplifier. Right?
Exactly. And that is the difference as well. And so like the content ideation process in all aspects becomes so much easier.
And number two is something that you said is it reflects in your content whether or not you have this obsession. Right? It's so fucking clear.
It's so funny. People who don't, who lack obsession and who lack expertise and who lack these very... imperative things that one must have when it comes to creating a long -term vision if they don't have those things people fucking see through you especially in a podcast especially in a podcast yes right that's where you just don't want to play fucking games anymore right you get someone on who doesn't know their shit if you didn't know your shit you're fucking cooked you have to go buy a script it's very clear that clearly we're not going off a fucking script with the monster right but like seriously it's very cool that we both can go recently signed a deal with a client, a new founder.
Yeah. Runs a very big energy dream company. No way.
Oh my God. Good shit. I didn't even talk to you about that.
But yes, it's, yeah, it's this. I'll reflect on this. Okay.
Because I completely agree. The podcast is the true proof of the expertise that people have. Because this is the thing.
You got to think on your toes. People tell me always, how do you communicate so well? But the ability to constantly have the ability to talk about something cool that you genuinely obsess with, that you genuinely love to talk about.
comes from a level of expertise and experience. It has nothing to do with communication. Communication is just the way you translate it to people.
The voice that you use, the volume that you use. It's easy shit. But you can communicate well if you don't know shit about the topic.
It's like forcing the B without having the A. It's like forcing step two if you don't have done step one. Yes, it's so true.
That is a very interesting level of proof. And that's the easiest way to see if you can trust someone. Yeah.
Yeah. Especially within the context of a podcast, right? Where you are forced, again, like a podcast is, and just to just go back to what you were saying, right?
When you are forced to, when you and I right now are almost like sparring, right? We're having this mental sparring session back and forth and back and forth. People who are not obsessed are going to be shit sparrers, right?
You're almost going to get bored with them. I send one punch and you just get knocked out. Whereas you and I continue to go back and forth and back and forth.
And this is how, And again, this is why it's so important to know what you're fucking talking about, right? And to actually do the thing and to take the actions that are necessary.
to build that level of expertise that will manifest in something like this. The analogy that you're giving is very interesting because I can give you a left punch, a right punch, but I can also give you a kick. So the interesting thing is you can see people's authenticity, but you can also see people's conviction behind their expertise.
You can see the expertise itself of what they're talking about. Is it actually trustworthy? Do you believe that they know something about the product or the vision or anything that they're talking about?
And there are so many categories to it. where you can decide a level of trust with someone. And that is such an important topic, though.
Yeah, yeah. No, and I just, I think this is the way to do it for anyone who's watching, is just go and find any video. Again, like Nick said, any long -form video of the person that you want to perhaps buy from.
And if you have a podcast, fucking watch the podcast. See what happens when... they get asked the hard questions right or when they're when when there's that when there's a little bit of silence and then the next conversation starts where it goes right and if it again like these these sorts of conversations that we're having how they're just going in so many random directions is such a good indicator that you know what you're talking about right we don't need to stay on a like i'm swearing so much but we don't need to stay on because i'm like because it's annoying right i'm almost annoyed by it not because i see it everywhere where people try to stay on this sort of bounded path and that they cannot escape and Amer you have to say this and this and this and this and this we didn't have any fucking talk before this you literally just told me like let's just talk like let's just talk about like the importance of the founder brand that's it that's all Nick said I was like yeah let's do it you know that's it that's literally it and we've been here for like and we've been preparing for this but we haven't prepared at all for six days like we've known this is coming for six days yeah and we haven't said a fucking thing about it shit yes we've been driving go -karts drinking monster driving go -karts yeah
Playing hide -and -seek tonight, by the way. You have to tell everyone. Everybody's going to get it.
You're going to play hide -and -seek in this fucking castle. It's going to be funny. But that's the thing, right?
And that's the beauty of it. It's genuinely... There's just no pressure, right?
That's why the whole time, too. Let me tell you one thing, though. Something that's very interesting.
I was very chill before the mastermind. And the interesting thing is, Chris, my strategist, said to me, he was a little bit stressed. Louis, the CEO, was a little bit stressed because we didn't have a plan.
We didn't have a plan at all. I haven't even told you this yet. The interesting thing is, Nick, he said to me, we were at the kitchen, he said to me, Nick, why are you so calm?
Why are you so happy? We don't have a fucking plan. You have 25 people that paid you an insane amount of money for this mastermind in Monaco, and you're chilling here like there's no fucking problem going on.
Because anything you have to fucking say is going to be valuable. You're right. I don't have a plan.
And I've never felt more fucking comfortable not having a plan. Because I was so confident that I have the ability to speak my own truth, right? And have the ability to translate my context of the things I want to talk about to these people.
Because I don't have an expectation of the outcome. That's the next thing I want to talk about. When you don't have an expectation of the outcome, most of the time you'll talk about the most truthful things and that becomes the best content.
So let me give you an example. When I am talking to... any client or any founder on the mastermind.
I don't care if I satisfy them with my answer. I don't care if they feel like that they have gained the right answer for them because they're asking a question, meaning they have fear behind a certain topic. If I believe that I can give them clarity through a truthful answer, I did my job.
Even though they might don't like to hear the answer. I know it's the truth. And it's sometimes difficult for people to accept the truth.
Just like the one guy who wanted the monetary gold, right? But you can't satisfy everyone. Yes.
And if you can internally respect yourself, if you can internally be satisfied with the way you speak to people and you know that every single fucking time you're doing truly the best to... truthfully answer a question with dedication, with intention to people, you know you're doing the right thing. And that is the exact confidence that translates to people.
Which is why the end of the event, maybe every answer that I gave didn't make logical sense to people, but they knew truly. that I gave them the right answer. And they were the best moments.
They were the best moments. And they were the fucking best moments. Yeah.
These moments are the best moments. And they're the ones that you're going to see on Instagram. Yeah, exactly.
These are the moments that make people feel that we're trustworthy, the way we do things with the team. Yes. And with the way I give answers to people.
No, it's the exact same thing with my community as well. It's so funny. The most meaningful moments of my lectures, when I talk about neuroscience philosophy, like just overcoming self -sabotage, Or when I just kind of like, I have whatever I need to talk about and the important things to speak about.
But then when I just sort of go on my like digressions and I just go fucking yap about whatever. My students love those the most, right? Like that's where they love it.
That's where they're like, oh my God, I'm just like actually just going to just go into like La La Land. Because my La La Land is what people want to actually know. Your La La Land, what you think about all the time when you're fucking right, when you're right about to go to sleep.
what I want to actually know about as well yes like these and there are obviously important things that you have sort of that you want to speak about but these things are often things that I can just find on your account a lot easier it's what I really want to hear and what really comes the value that comes from these live events or from lectures right that like I host are the moments where you go off the script right where you don't have again like you said this inherent goal because as soon as there's a goal that you need to gravitate towards there's always a right and wrong And there's a bounded track that you have to follow.
The interesting thing is somebody on my team said, okay, but Nick, you're so chill, but what if it goes wrong? It's like, wrong? Is there a wrong or a right?
What determines that an event went right? That's subjective. Is that based on what data?
What did I have to speak about? Because some person might like it, some person might not like it. So if you don't have an expected outcome, And you know that everything that you do throughout this process is a confident reflection of your internal self.
You know that you're doing the fucking right thing. And you'll know that it will go well. And people feel it.
Exactly. People feel it. People just know.
It's just so much more meaningful that way. You don't want to hear. I don't want to hear what every other fucking entrepreneur has to say, right?
I just don't really like, because that's not what I want to hear from you either, right? When you give the unorthodox answers, the ones that are sort of slightly like, you have to be like, wait, where did you just go? Those are the ones that really like, that's when it clicks, right?
The guy asks, well, you asked him again, what are your goals? 100K per month. Most people are like expecting Nick to say, okay, well, you need to do X, Y, Z to get 100K.
It's like, bro, get the 100K out of your head. that's not how this works that's not how the long -term game works right and that's again it's and then you just want a little like digression and riff and you just start to yap a little bit on that and then that's where everyone was just so just resonating right and even when you have to point to me in the audience a lot of the times right i maybe i was supposed to give a certain answer but i've also learned this as well where when i just want to talk like when i was talking to them and giving an answer to one of the guys who's asking me a question what the fitness offer right i'm going to give just my raw my raw honest opinion.
And that's where I think, again, if that's not the answer that he wanted to hear, then that's not the answer that he wanted to hear. But you'll also notice that it's a quality of a more mature mind where, and this is, I'm so glad that I just mentioned that because something just clicked, was another thing that you said, where the reason why you ask questions in the first place is because there's this reality testing aspect to them.
You don't want to You don't want to just know, you were saying this, I think it was, yeah, you were saying it to a person who asked a question next to your dad, I remember. And you were saying, the reason why I need outside perspectives, because if I only take the perspective, my internal perspective, it's going to be self -confirming and self -validating, right?
And I'm just going to be like, okay, this is correct, this is correct, this is correct, or this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. You need that intruder from the outside to kind of cut you in your tracks and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. It's like 100K per month isn't the goal, you know?
Do you see what I'm saying? And that's the importance of questions. And again, the mature mind, someone who does have that sort of mature outlook, when they ask the question, they shouldn't be looking for what they want to hear.
The best way to create content is not to solve people's problem or show them the exact game plan because it's subjective as fuck, even though they believe there's one path, which is absolutely not reality. It's just a lie. The best content isn't showing people the path.
Because when you do that with a breakdown or anything related to that, you're trying to solve their problem. The best way to create content is by talking about perspectives and principles. So you help them solve their problem and they can form their own outcome or their own perspective or their own vision around your principle or perspective.
Which is why if you want to talk about your expertise or you want to talk about your story, you provide a principle or a perspective on it. You don't provide a pathway or a breakdown on it. Because a pathway or a breakdown, it's subjective as fuck.
There is no one path for success for any single person. Or a desired situation for any single person. When we do this podcast, we constantly talk about a perspective or a principle.
We don't break it down in a way where there's one path for success. And the interesting thing about content, if you want to become very good at content, and build a founder brand, you need to share perspective and principles.
Because if you do that, you'll be instantly seen as an authority. Because you talk about the expertise and the way you bring it to the people. And the problem with this is what most people do in their content is they try to solve other people's problems.
They try to provide the solution for other people's problems. Which is... a logically right thought, the reason why it's wrong is because you can't solve anybody's problem.
The only thing that you can do is you can provide them principles and perspectives for them to realize how they can take these and implement that into their own life and business situation for them to solve their own problems. Right, because problems are inherently individual. Because principle and perspective is just subjective.
I might say something, and person A views it one way, and person B views it another way. Even though it's valuable for both. Which is why it's so fucking valuable.
And that is exactly the answer to having the ability to attract a broader market. Because you're not providing one solution that fits one category of people. You're providing a principle.
or perspective to a big amount of people. And because you do that, you have the ability to help people solve their problems. Right, right.
Oh my gosh. That was, no, it like clicked. That's fucking good, bro.
This idea that principles and perspectives almost transcend boxes, right? Where when you give the, oh my gosh, this is so good. This is so fucking good.
I just learned something, guys. This is really good. It was something that I guess I was naturally doing, but I didn't realize why, which is when you try to break something down, because I always had this aversion, right, to like giving just very sort of robotic breakdowns of a certain thing.
Like, for example, let's say shadow work or whatever. Whereas just giving a perspective, giving a sort of important perspective and understanding of why, of the why and the what behind these things that we talk about, you are now speaking to the larger whole of people and they can take that, oh my gosh, yeah, I can see it.
They can take that principle or perspective, as you say, and different people can extract different parts of it for their own problems. Because everyone has different problems that are super individual and specific that might require different perspectives and principles that you can take from. It's almost like .
principle container and people can just take from it as they want whereas if you have a solution container it's a very small one that only a few people can sort of that's so true yeah the interesting thing is if you provide a breakdown or a pathway yeah and you do that to a big amount of people to an audience mm -hmm most likely the entire part of the process won't feel related Only certain touch points throughout the process will feel related to the audience.
The rest feel alien. But it won't trigger them enough for them to feel related to that exact topic. Right.
Which is why it will never be a solution to their problem. But a principle is something, or a perspective is something people take their own way. Yes.
So it's something you can bend. It's something you can adjust. Malleable, yeah.
And because of that... it makes people think for themselves. And what you do when you do that, you create the best content.
Because you change people's perspective, belief, paradigm. You change the way they think and you give them the confidence in yourself because you just changed the way they think. Meaning, they believe that you helped them improve you by making you think different.
And when you do that, they instantly know, the exact step that they should take in their situation, even though it might be different for fucking everyone with the same principle that you spoke about. Right.
And that's what makes certain, this is so, there's so many, so many things are clicking because I guess this is also what makes certain creators so addicting to watch. And there's this, you just want more. When somebody has this ability to change your perspective constantly.
Correct. You, You want more of that, you know, like it's a very emotional experience to have your perspective changed, right?
You're like, oh shit like wait like that guy he's right about X Y or Z and Suddenly you you want that feeling again and you want to know what more about what they have to say because because yeah When you talk about principle and perspective you build an audience with intention because you're not repeating the same breakdown or pathway Constantly if you repeat the same breakdown or pathway constantly what you need is not the same amount of people and retain the same amount of people that's not a process that happens it's you need constant new people yes to be attached to that breakdown or pathway yes but when it's a principle and when it's a perspective you can get new people yeah but the existing people want to continuously keep learning from that same person because it's constantly improving and it's constantly changing it's constantly adapting it never stagnates yeah which is why a real audience is built because a real audience is built out of longevity
A real audience is built from the people that want to keep watching you. A real audience is built from the people that keep trusting you. And the more time that they spend with you, the better they trust you.
Yeah. Yep, I agree. And I like this idea of, again, you build an audience with intention.
That's just so important, right? It's so interesting to see how when you give perspective and principles in your content, because, again, I didn't really know. the exact why behind why I had such a good audience.
I know that the things I was speaking about were very important and they were resonating very deeply with people, but now when you really force me to think about this, and that's why I enjoy these conversations with you, it was because there was this consistent offering of perspectives and principles rather than that are so sort of universal and timeless and don't exist within some sort of constrained box.
And yeah, when you do that, the type of person that you attract into your audience and it becomes a follower is very different from the other type of person that otherwise would have followed. They have, like you said, the intention, the intention to continue to watch you, the intention to buy from you. It's a completely different type of viewer versus the people who like...
Just the breakdowns. That's so interesting because I've never liked watching breakdowns either. I always have enjoyed the people who offer perspective.
And this is why like Hormozy is such a captivating figure. Because even in the podcast where you see him speak in his most famous clips, it's never, it's always these very, very broad ranging principles and perspectives. Even he gives on business, which don't even need to be applied to business.
They can be applied to fitness and they can be applied to fucking whatever. aspect of your life they're very and that's what makes them such a captivating and sort of a figure with such gravitas right so Yeah, yeah, I know this is fucking good. There's no saturation to a principle or perspective Yeah, because you can view your you can view if I give you a perspective right now.
Yeah You'll have the ability To find a solution with that perspective to your problem. But you might be able to use the same perspective in a year from now and find the next solution.
But if I give you a pathway or a breakdown, you'll be able to find a one -off solution. Because when you improve, you'll never be able to benefit from that same pathway. It's like a puzzle piece that you can't really do anything with other than to put it in a single spot in a puzzle piece.
I fucking love it. I know that you want to talk about team as well. Before I want to go into team, I believe that a creative mind is nothing without execution.
I think execution in content is extremely important because it's the reflection of what actually gives you the information that you need to build up an audience that is valuable. To build up an audience that connects with you and to create content. What have you seen?
And what would you say is one of the most important things when it comes down to execution? So forget the ideation part, forget the what do you stand for part, forget the founder brand. What is immediate when it comes down to execution?
We focus a lot on creating YouTube videos because they actually provide people an insane amount of value. It maintains retention and it gives people the ability to see who you are as a person. which then reflects into short -form content.
And right now, most founders create that content on Instagram, which is very valuable. What do you think are the three most important steps when it comes down to execution?
Executing all content. Actually, like, doing it. Yeah.
And then after that, the next step comes team. Yeah. How do you have the ability to remove yourself out of that execution process to just have an idea?
and it gets distributed well that's so funny to say that because i was gonna say just seeing you and your execution process is very cool to see like the you have delegated the different the different aspects of executing to different people where an idea becomes material so quickly i think before you get to that stage um i mean and i think yeah when it comes to the pure execution part i think systems are important to have some and this is what you talked to me about as well to have some sort of system from from pure idea that you just think about you write in your notepad to the actual filming of the video and i mean this can vary for the individual but find the correct types of formats and finding again what is working and what isn't working and just hammering down on what's working again in an effective way when it comes to three steps I think number one, I think the very primary step goes back to what we were saying earlier, which is having a level, a real sort of domain and depth of knowledge when it comes to whatever you are doing.
This will lead to the natural arising of thoughts and things and something that you want. Satisfaction and ideas. Exactly, yes.
And that is step one. Again, it cringes me out so much when people who don't have any expertise are just asking AI, give me 100 ideas on branding or whatever it is. It's just like, no, no, no, no.
It's build your knowledge base. Actually take action, which is a part of the execution, right? To build that knowledge base, that's very important and imperative to have.
And then from there, you'll have something to chew on while you're bored and while you're sort of taking a shit or whatever. And then naturally that will lead to the next step. The next step is now converting that into, well, I would say some sort of level of copy, right?
And this is, again... The strategy process. Yes, the actual strategy process of creating this idea and how am I going to actually translate this into something that someone would actually...
Yes, and want to watch. And again, the ways that this can look is different from choosing the actual what's going to be said. and how it's going to be filmed and so on and so forth.
One important element I want to add to this, which is very important. We always start by the longest form piece. What people do is they try to segment it in different ways.
Yeah, I love what he says. Because you can use one big piece of content into four different variants. And the most important thing and element around this is that, first of all, you save yourself an insane amount of time because the distribution level becomes minimal based on the fact that you produce one big piece of content and it'll be distributed distributed into other forms or pieces of content.
Shorter form, longer form, different format. And the second level is you apply the same message over and over again into the audience. One of the most important things that you need to do if you want to build a valuable audience is talk about the same thing over and over again.
People believe that talking about the same thing over and over again will make the audience bored. It's exactly what they need to trust you. One thought that founders don't understand that try to build, their name is their most valuable asset, that try to build a founder brand, is they hear their own thoughts 20 times more than the average person in their audience does.
I love that you say this. This is one of the biggest insights that I ever had in one of your lectures, actually. It was in one of your group calls.
And you were just telling, because it was actually when I had a fear, something that I, an idea that I coined is this idea of the identity thermostat, which is sort of whatever temperature your identity is set to, your sort of outer world, meaning like the amount of money that you have in your wallet, the amount of fat that you have on your body, what your relationships look like, all of those will always come back to whatever temperature you're set to.
You increase the temperature of your identity, meaning you just sort of change your fundamental self -beliefs that are unconscious. And naturally, as a result, your outer world changes, right? you, everything that you have here, right?
This insane villa and the people that work with you and the relationships that you have are all a manifest symptom of who you are on a very, very foundational level, right? You are, and the beliefs that you have about yourself, right? And that's just how over time you sort of increase this temperature of who Nick is and then the outer world followed, right?
This is the identity thermostat. And so I remember thinking, I wrote writing about this and starting to post and I was like, fuck, am I posting a little bit too much now?
Is this going too much? And I remember it was right when I was thinking that. It was so weird how this worked, but I was watching, I was listening to you in one of your group calls and you were like, guys, you will get bored of your ideas way fucking faster than your audience ever will get bored of them.
It's going to require something. If you think it's going to require 10 times for your audience to get bored of it, or like, You said it requires 10 times as much for your audience to get bored of it before you get bored of it, right?
Because again, you have this very construed perspective that is just actually not true. You think that this thing has been repeated so much. Your own tunnel vision, yeah.
Exactly. Or you think that your audience gets bored of it. And something important that you said is when you are repeatedly pushing out a certain idea to your audience, they're going to...
there's going to be this question that's going to surface in their head time and time again, which is, what is this thing that this person's talking about? What is this idea that Amber's talking about so much? I just fucking need to know.
I need to know. I need to know this thing Nick is talking about. And this is something that happened with your stories, where you were constantly saying the same idea on several stories over and over and over again, and you're repeating it over and over.
I just, there was a point where I was like, okay, like I just need to know what this guy's talking about. And that's when I sort of like moved down the funnel, right? So it was this, it was that that was, I think, very, very important for me to understand through your content.
And number two was, and this other thing that you mentioned, which is, and something that I actually, I'm glad that you mentioned, which is starting with the long form content. And again, like in the systems process. and then moving that down or dividing that up and segmenting it into different forms of content, right?
So I think both of those things that you mentioned were very true, but they both resonated with me a lot. And again, this idea of burnout, right? It's very easy to burn out if you're doing things the wrong way, if you're trying to...
do 50 reels over and over and over again or just like or sorry like days of recording 30 reels let's say you're going to burn out so much faster than just one really good conversation like this which really requires no effort from either of us right just a yogurt and some monster and That's all we really fucking need. And this is going to be everywhere.
And this is going to feed a lot of content for a long time. The level of distribution of longevity will be immense. It will create an impact for a very long time.
Yes, an impact on you as a human being as well. We both know this. It's hard.
It can be hard to just fucking be producing non -nonstop. We are now producing an occasional asset. This is something you don't do every day.
And it creates longevity for a longer period of time. It creates a moat. It's a big boost, which is very interesting, right?
And you also obviously have recurring content, which is continuously pulsed to amplify one belief into the audience's mind. I think that the third step is very interesting. The third point is quality.
What I talked about before. Quality is subjective. The end goal, that you try to create and the angle that you desire and the pathway of your brand determine your level of quality most of the time meaning some people want to attract customers some people want to attract talent some people want to attract investors and the interesting thing is one thing that i see a lot of people do wrong is If they post a video and it didn't get a lot of views, they get affected emotionally by the end result of that video.
Even though they intentionally know that quality is the determination of their outcome, which is getting customers, investors, or talent. And the amount of views has nothing to do with the outcome. Why do you believe, and what have you learned over the past couple years, detaching quality, or sorry, detaching any form of, how can I say this?
Detaching any form of view count from producing quality. And the reason I'm saying this problem, one thing, is because you consciously know that you try to optimize for quality and you know what quality means for you, even though You still feel shit when something doesn't get good views.
People still do. So why does that get affected by your emotion even though you know that your determination of quality, which is extremely fucking subjective, still might hit your goal? Several things.
This is a good question, and I like that you ask it. You can look at it from a more objective standpoint. You can look at it from the perspective of the long -term vision.
I'll start with the more tangible things. When my closer, Tori, when she's on sales calls with people, and sometimes she's curious, like, what sort of sprung your interest with Amr? The amount of people who, like, say...
It was this one Twitter post Amr posted, like, I don't know, six months ago that has, like, 34 likes. 34 fucking likes. I'm not even kidding.
Like I've had several people go to this one Twitter post. I don't even know which one it is. It's like so old.
And they'll be like, it was just so good. Like I just really enjoyed that post. Or people who will go to like the, genuinely like the most, like the sort of the depths of my Instagram that I don't even look at anymore.
And these old Twitter posts in the old Twitter format. If you look at my Instagram account, I have this sort of new Twitter format that I use, which is like nice and aesthetic and it does very well. But I also used to have just like the OG, if you guys know, tweet pic, which is like this website used online to convert Twitter posts into IG format.
And the amount of people who will read those that are so, what's the word, just old. and with very few likes, and it didn't do well, or even more recently, I'll still post clips of this one podcast that I've had, and I know that it's not going to do well. I know that it's just not going to hit the algorithm, because again, I'm not optimizing for a hook when it's just a medieval podcast.
But I've been lucky to be able to separate this, Nick, to be honest, where... When I do post these podcast clips, I've completely sort of foregone the notion that this might do well. And I'll post a clip knowing that it's not going to do very well.
But the amount of people that tell Tory. There was this one clip of Amr, this one video. And I'll check which one it was because I was curious.
Tory tells me. And it has like 132 likes, right? With like four comments.
And this person was like, it was just so good. Like what he was saying was resonating so much. Again, this question, Nick, of...
And I want to say one more thing after this, which is the long -term vision aspect. What are you optimizing for? And so this leads into the next sort of segment here, which is when you have a long -term vision, be very fucking careful with what you post.
If you are optimizing for purely view count, it's so easy to optimize for views. It's so easy. It genuinely is.
If I wanted to create a hook, it could be any hook. It could be one of a car crashing into someone, or it could be me doing something stupid, whatever it is. I'm no longer optimizing for my long -term vision, for my long -term brand, for my founder brand, right?
I don't want to be known as someone who is trying to just like, just like, again, hooks are very important. We know this, but that's not the point, which is like purely just like click baiting or whatever. That's not what I want.
That's not what I want. I want content that has depth and substance to it. You'll see that these people with 800K followers, 900K followers, whatever, and you look at their brands, and it's hollow, and it's empty, and you can feel it, and they don't give a fuck about what, and they start with the cringiest entries, and it's like, sure, okay, it's very clear, you're optimizing for views, but even, and again, the content itself is very superficial, but then you'll see some people, the guy that you were showing me right before we spoke, with the very interesting, what was his name, the very interesting Instagram, I forget what his name was, but you were just showing me him.
And you were showing me, and you're like, Adam, look how interesting this guy is, what he's saying. And he didn't have many likes. He didn't have many likes.
And I was captivated by it. I was like, I need to follow this guy. It's so good, right?
That's who you're converting. He's bringing people like me and like you who are ICP as fuck, right? And just like good people to have in your audience at all times, right?
So this is the thing. It's like when you're posting stuff like that guy, who gives a fuck if you're not doing super well when he knows? Yes.
Oh, and this is something, last thing I want to say, and it goes back to something that's very old for me, which is such a high amount of my followers are verified, right? And this is something that you always showed me as well. It's like, look at the quality of followers that I get, right?
And you would show this to your audience. Verified, verified, verified, verified. Yes, right now, I'm like at a slower period.
I'm not posting as much. I'm very intentional with my posts, right? And my quality, the quality of my followers is just so...
Hi, I have a real audience and I can see it. Like, oh my God, these people who are following me are like info owners and whatever it is, and mindset coaches and people with psychology backgrounds and people with big audiences. And I'm not optimizing for the views, right?
I can disrupt this. I can erase this thought for anybody forever with one exercise. And that is visual representation.
As an example.
Go to watch a football match. Go to a football stadium. 50 ,000 people.
That is the amount of views that you get in a single month, which is very low. You understand, right? When one YouTube video gets 1 ,000 views and a couple of reels get 5 ,000 views, you hit 50 ,000 within the first two weeks of posting.
Go to a football stadium, watch a football match, and you'll see all these people in that stadium. That is the exact amount of people that watched your content in just four weeks. Lowest, like worst case scenario, okay?
Like for us, it's like the amount of people that would watch it in like a half day. But look at the point. Meaning, you just need 1%, 1 % of these people to believe in you.
To trust you. And when that is the case, which is 50 ,000 people, which is 500 people is 1%. 500 people will be able to become your customer.
Which is absolutely ridiculous if you think about it. Because if you do optimize for a customer, if you do optimize for talent, how high is the chance that just not a few people out of these 50 ,000 people would want to become your best friend, would want to become your best customer, would be that investor that would give you millions of dollars for you to develop your vision.
You see where I'm coming from? Depending on the founder brand and what your vision is and the character that you want to build and the people that you want to attract. But I always use that visual representation example because if I just give the number, you won't be able to visualize it.
When you experience it, it's the best form. Visual is the second best form, and then the wording is the third best form of actual depth. The way you observe.
Experience. If you actually do it live, it's the best. And the interesting thing is, you just have to say the right thing that your audience cares about, and you have to be fully aligned with the message that you want to represent to your audience.
So if you want to attract that talent, you need to be very clear in the way you speak about certain things. One thing I want to talk about. is the thing that you focus on attracts what you want.
It's the easiest thing. I'll give you a perfect example. There was a period in time with our founder brand, especially like prior and like a year, one and a half year ago.
We spend around 90 % of our attention into how good something looks, into the editing variant of it, into the color grading, into the angles. And the compliments that we got and the feedback that we got from our audience is, oh wow, I see how much time Nick spends on his production side of things.
And 10 % of the time, you know, 10 % of the time we spend on the actual wording and value of the video. And this was for a period of three, four weeks. Customers still bought.
The interesting thing was they bought because of the wrong reasons. Which is very, very valuable. Which is such valuable information.
Oh yeah. Meaning what you focus on is directly the message you bring to the market and the way people respond to that message. And the easiest way to figure out the message you should portray to your audience is by being as clear as fucking possible.
So good. I love it. The easiest thing.
Somebody asked me a question in the mastermind two days ago. He said, what is the one thing that you might regret or you would have done differently? And I said, directly speaking about the things that I wanted to talk about.
And he was like, fuck, that makes so much sense. And it sounds so easy. But it's so deep when you genuinely understand what I just said there.
And it's so valuable to understand that one principle. You know what I mean? Directly speaking about the things...
you want to talk about because that translate pure authenticity directs directly to people's soul and that's exactly what they need to create that trust and if you do that to a small group of people we're talking about a small group of people but a small group of people is technically an entire fucking stadium when it comes down to reach you will have the ability to have a small group of these people to fully trust you and fully believe in you and it's the only thing you need to give yourself a massive kickstart that is the only thing you need if you have a founder brand that is very valuable with a level of authority to go to the next level that is the reason why i decided to develop the standard and why i got to this vision in the first place because i believe that the way we do things right now is the most aligned with the way we provide the message to the audience And it's most aligned with where we're currently at in the business.
Fuck yeah, bro. There's a lot of things to say there. I'll take it in the order they came.
One was, I think, I like this visual that you use of the stadium. And I think it was experience that you used. And what's also important is, again, depending on what you're optimizing for, the people in that stadium change, right?
So when your content is... intentional and has substance and depth, it's now an audience full of 50 ,000 entrepreneurs versus an audience full of people who are complimenting you for how nice your color grading is, right? There's a huge fucking difference.
Nobody wants an audience of 50 ,000 people who like how your colors look, right? Sure, it's nice to have nice colors, but nobody, like, that's not what we want. Whereas, and this is why intention is so huge, and again, back to separating and creating this dichotomy between views received.
and quality of the content high quality content with time will bring you that audience of 50 000 really really uh just good people to to have yourself surrounded by in a stadium right so this is like number two is not only is it the fact that you have so many people and you have to convert a small amount of them but also who are those people who are watching the first place right so important third point you also have the ability to change people's mind the existing people already in that state yeah which is the most important thing because people believe if they change their message to their audience they completely start from scratch because they need to attract a whole new audience which is complete fucking bullshit because yeah because you have a founder brand people don't just believe in your message they believe in you meaning if you change your message they'll still believe you yes leave the message yes which is why think about certain thoughts when it comes down to pivotal changes in the way the market moves or indeed you believe that you have around the market or The changing in the type of people that you want to attract doesn't have to be difficult you have to be as you just have to be as Clear and concise as possible say what you want to give people the right fucking expectation.
Yeah into knowing what you want, what you desire, so they understand if they fucking like it or they don't. And that's exactly what you fucking need.
You don't want to be liked by everyone. That's the worst thing. The reason you ask yourself the question, why can't I stand out?
It's because you're neutral. It's because your message speaks to absolutely everyone. It's because your message kind of satisfies everyone.
It doesn't make people feel embarrassed. It doesn't make people feel sad, but at the same time, it doesn't make people feel fulfilled. It doesn't make them powerful and feel intentional.
The day that, there's this one quote that I love. Your brand, your personal brand or brand begins only the day that you post something you know people will hate. that's the day that it starts.
And there are so many people who never even reach that day. They're too scared to say something that they know people will hate. And if you look at any person with a very strong brand, they say so much contrarian shit that they know is going to stir feathers and ruffle feathers, right?
But who gives a fuck, bro? The amount of people who, like just, I mean, people that hate both of us, I'm sure. They just think that we're absolute...
fucking idiots, just saying stupid things. 100%. They're out there, but that's the day.
As long as you're appealing to the audience, you're appealing to nobody, right? As long as you're appealing. And it only begins when you have that one thing that you want to say and you're like, oh shit, people aren't going to like this.
People don't understand that. They believe that when they start to create content, they start to build their personal brand. Which is so fucking bullshit.
You create content that has nothing to do with the fact that you create your brand. Yes, two very different things. Let's define brand.
Let's define brand. Brand is the thought process and the beliefs that people have the moment they hear your name. Oh, I love it.
I was going to say something very similar. What are the expectations someone has in their head when they hear your name? What are the things they associate you with?
The thought process they gain in their head and they believe in the feeling that they get the moment they hear your name. And when you don't have an answer to that direct question, you most likely have a very undefined brand. And you, if you can find the answer to that question yourself, how can you expect other people to find a question to that answer?
Which is the reason why you create content. Which is the reason why you don't have a brand. Which is the reason why you most likely...
look just like everybody else because you do the work, but you create content, which is the reason why you have a hard time standing out because you don't have a fucking brand. Exactly. And then you'll never, again, you'll never have this immunity to the market, right?
And just in general, you'll, again, just this like very typical cliche that people use, but it's just very true. People don't buy coaching, they buy coaches, right? Like no, you can get fitness coaching, just let's say something as prevalent as, fitness coaching, right?
Nobody gives a fuck about the program. Like, nobody cares. People get it because of the coach.
People will just be like, I want to work with that guy. He's fucking cool. He says stuff that I agree with.
Yes, it's the brand. It's the brand, right? Just like a very, like, and it's just like, again, you see this motif just surface everywhere, right?
It's just that there is such a stark difference between Like you said, like something at like content and just putting out content and the expectations people have when they think of the word Amer Jan Bay or Nick setting, right? Like what, what question?
You're someone that knows me really well because we spending a decent amount of time together. Yeah. One of the main things that a lot of people said on the mastermind yesterday was two days ago was the way you operate with your team is, is absolutely.
Insane, I blew my mind because they can feel the energy on the team and around the brand What do you believe is needed? Mm -hmm to translate That brand view that founder brand to your team so good so they are aligned. What is the question?
For a team to operate based on your standard your expectations, but not only that also your vision so they can execute right? Yeah, yeah, I like this question a lot and I think it's very cool. You've made it very clear Again, it goes back to this question of how do we make this ball in the middle of this field as dense and heavy as possible?
How do we bring as many things into it and number one is clarity you are extremely extremely Clear when it comes to your expectation, and I'm just going to be very tangible so the audience kind of understands as well, but everyone on your team knows exactly where you want to go and where you're going to go, right? Even if you pivot, they right now know what's in your head.
There's no ambiguity there. There's no cloud. There's no screen.
It is this. I can ask Herman, I can ask Chris, I can ask Lewis, I can ask anyone on your team, Isaiah, whoever it is, and I can ask, what does Nick want? And they'll just give me a perfect answer.
And I bet they'll give me the exact same answer. This is where Nick wants, this is where he wants to be, this is how long he wants it to be, this is exactly how he wants it to look, x by z, this is what his myroboard looks like, whatever. You know, you're very clear.
So this is number one, is there should not be any level of ambiguity or cloudiness around a vision. Your team needs to know. And so it's very clear, and your entire team said this, Max, there's a level of clarity that you bring to your team and something that I've noticed with you that's extremely motivating as well, which is I just want to talk to my team now.
I saw that and I was like, fuck, I need to talk to Mitch. I need to talk to Tori. I need to talk to my COO and my closer and my center.
And I need to tell them, guys, this is where I want to go. And this is what it looks like. And this is what my report looks like.
I think that's probably the most important thing. And that's number one, is having that. Number two, I would say, is conviction.
What is the energy that you're bringing behind this? You are always like, again, you have this gravitas and this aura around you, really, you do, where people, it's, again, this object in the center of the solar system that's so heavy that... Even someone like me, I just want to fall into your orbit, and I fall into your orbit, right?
And it's things like that that have also helped me so much with my offer and what I offer people, which is my long -term vision. And, oh man, this is really good because I wanted to mention this. I think something that differentiates people like us versus a lot of people who are just sort of selling offers are...
The fact that there is always a longer, greater vision that is so much more substantial. With me, for example, my end goal is not Instagram. It lies far beyond Instagram.
I've told you this. We were talking about it at the pool, but I want to be a PhD, and I want to continue to study philosophy for the rest of my life, and analytical psychology, and neuroscience. And I want to be an author, exactly.
And even you remember it because you could feel that I was just so convicted in these things and obsessed. And in virtue of having something like that, people are like, fuck, I want to be a part of this. I want to be around Amara.
I want to be around Nick. It's when you have that, that thing that transcends Instagram. And I think this is why people who are just stuck on the Instagram sort of wave of...
Let me create an offer and let me try to just sell as much as I can. When you ask them what lies beyond it, they don't know. And because of that, it's like a marble.
instead of a fucking big rock in this thing, right? There's no gravity around it. You're not pulling anyone in by that.
They try to fatigue their audience as quickly as possible because they're optimizing for a short -term deal. Exactly, and this goes back to... If you built an audience in the first fucking year, you shouldn't be selling absolutely nothing.
You should just be providing value. You should just be showcasing... what you can do to build trust with people, to showcase your value to the market and people, which is what makes it very valuable.
And the sad thing around all of this is there are so many founders making hundreds of millions with their brand that don't have a founder's name, that don't have a name built online, which is why they're missing out on so much opportunity. even though they have such a fucking powerful story to tell. They have such a important obsession to share.
They have such a valuable vision to showcase to others. Yes, yeah, 100%. And that's just a missed fucking opportunity.
Yeah, yeah, and it's a tragedy. It's one of the, yeah. It is a tragedy, for sure.
And I think the fact is that When you do have that that that identity attached to a brand that founder that founder brand attached to something that you've built This goes back to the very beginning of our conversation and to what we were saying, which is you no longer have an audience of Buyers or just like customers and you have an ideological community right and people who sees so much more than Again, like even if even the brand for like I think of like I don't know why I'm thinking of this brand but Patagonia They don't have they don't have a founder brand Person, but you can see that Patagonia is about so much more than just being like a I don't know if you know Patagonia has like the mountains on it you right when you think of Patagonia you think of like Mountains and you think of people who are climbing mountains There's there's there's a vision that is that lies beyond it right same with big brands like Nike for example when you wear a Nike like it's
There's something that comes with wearing it that is much more than just the swoosh. The swoosh means so much. And you can create that exact same feeling with the founder brand.
People see so much further. They're no longer buying. People don't buy Teslas because of Tesla.
They buy it because of Elon Musk. They want to be a part of that. That's why.
And even with Apple.
Apple workers have been, like this is a very sort of famous or well -known thing, quote from many people who worked within the Apple headquarters, which is Steve Jobs had such a, I think it was like a gravitational warping field, something like that, right? Where like you would just be around him and it seemed like time and reality were almost warped around him because he had this, such a powerful vision for Apple, right?
Look what Apple is now. And that's what made it such a substantial thing. right so um yeah yeah it's the level of depth that goes underneath attracting talent that people don't understand people ask me nick oh how can i get a creative director or how can i build a media team like you because i see you've helped emma you've helped daniel you've helped ibrahim doing the same thing it's because the depth of work is done by each individual yeah like you guys yeah exactly and then the the offer of representation of listen hey i need someone that's the logical easy step that's super simple that's just doing the job post yeah right yeah but that's the most boring answer that i can give that has no substance to it which is why everything that you just spoke about is such a valid point into knowing what you need to build for yourself to let anybody else amplify who you are.
Because no one will come in your team, join your team to solve your problems and boost your business. You need to have the ability to be very clear on what you want. You need to understand how to solve your own problems for somebody to be part of that vision and amplify even faster.
Nobody can expect, when you attract talent, for anybody to come in and solve your fucking problem. That's absolutely impossible. Yeah, and that goes for life as well.
There's just no magical other that is going to sort of enter life and save you, right? It's one of the big illusions that we have.
Yeah, and I like the fact that you... It's interesting you use Daniel's name and Ibrahim's name and my name. It's funny because...
if anyone here speaks to Daniel or Ibrahim or me or Nick, I think you'll quickly get the... You'll feel what I feel when I'm around Nick or Daniel or Ibrahim, which is this gravity, this field, this gravitational field that has been almost warped by this very energetic, dense presence, right? And this goes for...
when I've spoken to Daniel and Ibrahim as well, right? That's step one, is to have that vision that you have so much energy behind and that you are rallying yourself or where you are rallying for yourself, right? And this is just very clear with these sorts of individuals where you can feel that with them and they have this depth of knowledge and expertise that just...
that you just can't question at all um and same with you right like i think this this is this podcast has been a great example of you know like your expertise and yeah i commend you for that um and it's just it's it's it's really cool to see like it just it's it's it's very cool to see yeah oh yeah man i have one other question though One thing I genuinely believe is you need to be able to let go of control as a founder Building a founder brand.
Mm -hmm is one of the most valuable assets you can brawl when you can built Yeah in a moment, you're alive on this earth right in this moment of time. Mm -hmm Not knowing where the future goes not knowing the history of things in this moment of time for sure but that means building a founder brand means How can I represent myself as authentically as possible?
Online to create that most valuable asset meaning If I say you need to let go of control to your team you kind of need to let go of control yourself Because you are your founder brand. Yes It's something I've worked on for a long time you as well what is something that you'd say is one of the most core important elements into letting go this control because once you build this founder brand you're attached to it you know it's going very well but there's going to be a point where you need to take a workload you need to have the ability to systematize the process as well for those who desire it And built a pool of talent around what you're doing to make it bigger.
Yes. And to expand it. Yes.
To a level where you take over the world with your vision. Yeah.
What do you think of that? Yeah, I think this is a really good question. I think it's something that almost any entrepreneur is going to struggle with at one point in their lives.
Me and you included.
I think there are several things. I think the first one that surfaced when you were speaking was that you need to see the other side. Even though the waters might seem very cold and very scary to jump into, you just need to just do it and move in that direction of delegation and systematization.
of things and it's a scary it's a scary move right it is a scary pivot where like you're like oh my god somebody else is going to do this for me like it's not gonna be me anymore like i'm just so cooked right but it's and again it's it's also very easy to be um sort of thrown off or or afraid if something goes wrong and revert back just like i need to do this myself there's not people just aren't as good as me And that's also another thing that I've struggled with in the past, which is I've given something to someone, like let's say an editor, for example, and they didn't do it as well.
I'm like, okay, I can't do this anymore. But you just need, it's like, just wait. Just sit in the water for a little bit longer.
I know it's cold. I know it hurts. I know it sucks.
But just sit there for just a little bit and suddenly an edit comes up or someone helps you with a certain aspect of the business, whatever it is that you've delegated. And you're like, wait, this isn't so bad. like that wasn't so bad and it's like and you're still kind of clenching around it and you're like like you're like but but what about the next time and with time i think it's you will see the by taking these slow and incremental steps but necessary steps it's so important for the founder brand right and just just to be a founder this is what it means to be a founder is like you cannot be using so much of your cognitive bandwidth on such like mundane tasks It's something as simple as sales.
I can't imagine taking a sales call, but it was so hard for me to let go of that first. What do you mean? I can't be the person to bring people into my community because I'm the one who knows most about it.
Nobody knows about neuropsychology and identity and all this stuff as much as me, so I need to sell it. But again, I've taken those steps. And again, it doesn't go super well at first.
It's going to be rocky. It's going to be cold. But then you realize, wait, suddenly I have all of this open bandwidth of space that I can use to...
think and just do things and you do it and then you're like wait this is nice and you do it again and you do it again experience that you only get the moment you genuinely experience exactly and that's why that's what goes what i was saying is just jump in the water just just and it doesn't i know it's going to hurt but yes because with certain things you only can you can you can only have a a thought And a thought is not as valuable as an experience.
Because experience gives you the reality. It gives you the perspective into knowing that your thought might be right sometimes or might be wrong. But you need to know the answer to it.
Yes, yeah. Conceptual understanding and experiential understanding are two drastically different things, right? You can intellectually understand something and can mean fuck all, right?
And this just goes for most lessons in life, right? There are, I think Chris Williamson calls them the unteachable lessons where... You just, like, for example, money doesn't bring you happiness.
Everyone's like, sure, okay, whatever. But you don't actually see that until you start making money and you're like, wait, I'm not happy, right? It's the same thing.
These unteachable lessons where there is the conceptual understanding of, yeah, I understand why money wouldn't make me happy because there are other things that matter in life. But then there's some, it's very different to make a lot of money and to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in your bank account. and still have that void you know so and this goes for this is just a sort of larger or more broad example for something specific like this which is delegation and system systematization of uh the of just like the process of having or of just a business in general right which is yes sure someone can understand yeah it's probably like i know it's important to delegate once and you if you they do it 80 as well as you it's time to delegate it But it's very different to let go of something and to actually let go of it.
And and you're like, oh, fuck, are they going to kill it? And they're not going to kill it, right? And sometimes they hurt it a little bit and sometimes you've got to move a little bit around and you've got to give it to someone else.
But yeah, I think it's very important to begin to take these very foundational and, again, just like another sort of... motif that's surfacing now is right and this is just this is true i think of founders in general a lot of people are so again and this just goes back to this um theme that has surfaced many times now between us which is the time frame so many people are so stuck on this idea of quick change of the quick money of the quick whatever and they just want to do it and yes technically you're going to get there faster by going alone sure whatever great but you're not going to go as far and you're going to there's going to be a point where you just sort of fall flat on your face and it's going to hurt a lot it's right this is all about timing as well understanding what for decision to make and who to hire at what point in time yes yeah and one interesting thing i want to go into is what you said earlier we were talking about
Team and we were talking about who sometimes if an editor or a creative director doesn't perform it's because of one reason and this is something that a lot of people don't understand and Especially to reflect this on the audience as well if you hire people into your team Especially your media team. There is one thing that you need to understand First of all, you have people that take action based on Your words and thoughts.
These are people that just execute what you tell them to do and there are problem solvers people that can find a solution to problems themselves without needing your help because they have the capability to be smart thinkers smart labor to figure out how that process works, but Everybody everybody in the team starts from the baseline You can't you can have the power and the mentality and the intrinsic the skill to solve problems yourself, but when you have no context on the exact topic or vision, you'll never be able to get there.
So first, understand what type of person you have in your team. It's like, is it the person that constantly needs to follow a process as a follower, or is it a person that can ultimately solve a problem themselves and has a leader mindset? That leader mindset still starts at the bottom, and the easiest way to create longevity in a team with a creative director or an editor or anything any person related to this is showcase them exactly how it's done genuinely it sounds so simple but when i showed max exactly how i wanted to have something done He got it done exactly that way.
So I created a vision board. I said, this is the process of wording of how we structure things. This is the process of how I visually see the editing happening.
This is the process of how I visually see the subtitle and thumbnail, et cetera, happening, which costs you a little bit of time. But throughout that process, they can follow it. And because they have a leader mindset, they'll have the ability to constantly improve.
They constantly have the ability to improve based on it. You see where I'm coming from? And that is one of the most valuable team, one of the most valuable plays, to improve your team continuously, to create longevity, and for them to have the opportunity to genuinely understand what you're looking for in your founder brand.
Because in the beginning, I said, next, what you're doing now, I don't like it. I don't like it at all. And then I was like, you know what?
I don't think Max is the right person for me. And I was like, I have never shown Max how the fuck I want to visually make it look. I never said to him, I want it to be exactly like this or this or this because I haven't pictured that vision in his brain.
So the same way as it works with the first understanding of the vision as a founder for your founder brand, it works as the vision for your content with your content strategy. And the moment I started doing that, even for my editing team, the editing team, they don't have a leader mindset. They have a following mindset, which is completely fine.
But if you showcase them how you want to have things done, which is something that Max takes control over. they can just exactly follow the steps into how Max wants to have it done. Because Max has that leader mindset, meaning I can showcase in my process and he can elaborate that energy and he can express that energy to the rest of the team, to the people that have a follower mindset.
And it's the easiest way to get your team aligned with your vision and what you want to do. And when you do that, you recurrently build a brick on top of each other to get your team to amplify your current brand into what your vision is and your satisfaction levels will constantly be met because you genuinely get your team to create shit you love and you'll never be disappointed.
Sauce, bro. I got nothing to say. And it's such a simple thing.
And it took me three months to figure this out. Three months. Because the only belief that I had in my own brain is this is not good enough.
This team is not good enough. This person doesn't fit me. This is not good enough.
So maybe it's me. Maybe it's me. It's always you.
It's always the founder at the end of the game. It's Nick setting everyone. Easy solution.
Yeah. I'm going to clip that last part for me right now because that was so good. I don't really have anything much more to say than that.
I think you summarized it perfectly, bro. Thank you. Yeah.
Thank you, man.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
There is no cold open, no promise, no stated agenda. One founder asks the other where it all began, and the next hundred minutes unfold with no script, no prep and no question list, which turns out to be the argument the whole conversation is making.
How they asked for the click.
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