Why Clarity in Messaging Builds Billion-Dollar Brands | Donald Miller DSH #1358

But, you know, went off for a few years and figured out how to write and put together a book.

I don't know if I was naturally gifted.

I was naturally obsessed.

You know, I'm curious about how much

people who succeed are gifted or are they just obsessed?

Like, do they actually have an obsessive drive, which makes it look like they're gifted?

Okay, guys, got Donald Miller out here in Las Vegas.

You ready for a fun week?

I am, yeah.

Grateful dead and a few podcasts.

Yep, Grateful Dead, doing a couple podcasts, speaking at a car wash convention.

So, yeah, it'll be busy.

Vegas has all sorts of conventions.

That's the first time I'm hearing of a car wash one.

Hell, you guys have like the biggest conventions in the world.

That's the good part about living here.

Yeah.

I don't have to go anywhere.

And all those speakers come in to speak at those conventions and they stop by your office, I'm sure.

Exactly.

Yeah,

it's a win-win, man.

But yeah, what are you going to talk about there, storytelling?

I'm going to talk about,

yeah, I mean, you know, my shtick is clarify your message so customers engage.

So I'm going to talk about how most businesses are missing out on sound bites and how you need to have sound bites, no matter what you do.

You need to have sound bites that you repeat in order to sort of help people understand why you're valuable to them.

Yeah.

And it doesn't matter what business you're in.

It doesn't matter if you're running for office.

I mean, honestly, it's true just as a human being, you know, that

we value people who can solve problems.

And if you, if you know what problem you can solve and you're able to articulate it, the perceived value of you goes up as a person.

So, you know, it's true in business.

It's true in leadership.

It's true in just being person.

Have you seen the formula for successful storytelling change over time?

Because I remember when I was a kid, those commercials, I still remember the jingle to some of those.

And now I I feel like the commercials these days, I forget about them instantly.

Yeah, we've kind of broken away from, you know, with, with all the noise, I'm amazed at how bad advertising is.

It's awful.

It's a waste of money.

Most of it.

You know, I remember, I was watching a, are you a football fan?

Yeah.

Who do you like?

Giants.

I grew up in Jersey.

Oh, okay.

I'm a Seahawks fan.

Okay.

So I'm watching the Seahawks one day and in the end zone of the football field are painted the words Crucial Catch.

Have you seen this?

No, I haven't seen that so crucial catch and there's three colorful bars that reminded me of the old like polaroid kodak logo

and i thought well they must be advertising a line of cameras you know crucial catch like catch the picture or whatever two weeks later i find out that is a cancer awareness campaign

and it was

you know crucial catch intercept cancer all this kind of stuff That is a great example of an absolute waste of money because, you know, you sit around with some ad execs and they say, oh, you know, what could be more crucial than catching cancer early?

Oh, you know, a catchy ball in the end zone is crucial.

Oh, what if we say crucial catch?

And nobody was in the room when they had that conversation.

So they end up shipping just confusing language.

And you see it over and over, and you see the ramifications of it.

I mean, you know, if they would have just put, promise us you'll get screened for cancer, cancer, in the end zone, they'd have saved a lot more lives.

But there's this, there's almost like this necessity that people feel to be sophisticated or clever or cute, and it costs them.

It costs them.

The reality is you've got to be able to articulate

the value that you offer

on the open market, if you will, really, really quickly and in a soundbite because nobody thinks in a nuanced way anymore.

At least not when they're encountering a brand or a leader or something like that.

People think in soundbites.

I mean, let me give you an example, Sean.

You know, I realize politics is a provocative place to go, but it's a great place to study effective messaging, ineffective messaging.

You had somebody like Jeb Bush, who wrote a book on immigration.

He wrote a book on education, and he's at 3% in the polls.

Donald Trump's immigration policy was three words, build a wall.

He gets elected president.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah.

Simple.

It's simple.

There's no nuance to it.

The brain has to burn calories in order to process information.

And the more calories you make people burn up front,

the less likely they will be to pay attention to you.

Yeah.

Now,

after they get through what we call the curiosity phase, they'll pay a lot more attention to you and they'll be willing to burn calories, but you got to earn that.

And you earn it with, you know, with sound bites, at least in the, in the field that I'm in, which is helping people clarify their message.

You burn some serious calories using your brain.

Six to eight hundred calories a day.

Yeah.

So 20% of your calorie expenditure every day is burned by your supercomputer.

And people don't even know that.

No.

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Player and I burn even more because chess, you're burning thousands.

Are you good?

I'm decent.

Really?

Good is relative in chess because I'll get humbled real quick if I go to the streets in New York.

But if I play any any friend of mine, I'll destroy them.

Yep.

And you're probably exhausted at the end of the day.

All you did was sit there.

Yeah.

Podcasting can be tiring too.

It can, especially if you haven't enforced a conversation.

Yeah.

Certain shows aren't as good.

Hopefully this one's one's not so bad sean but for me i'll film like six in a row so by the end of the day sometimes i'll be like i just worked out it feels like i'm exhausted yeah yeah i feel the same way you know go on the road speaking at stuff like this i'll go home and i don't have any words left so i only go out once a month because i have a i have a little girl at home and i have a wife and so respect yeah i don't i try just to go out one night a month oh it's not the size too

uh but uh try to do that and the reason is just wasted when you get home you know it's absolutely wasted people suck all your energy too that's true so balance is is big for you then yeah balances i got i got i got married at 42

uh pretty late and then i became a dad at 49.

if i would have got married in my early 20s i i i'm not like you i i probably would have messed it all up really oh no there's no zero question about how so why do you think that one uh

she's too idealistic really insecure uh would have married a woman because she made me look good rather than because i loved her

Codependent.

You want a laundry list?

That's a lot of stuff, man.

I love that honesty.

You're a food addict.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

Fast food or unhealthy stuff?

Yeah, whatever I can get going down.

You know, so I had to clean up my act a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How did you work through the, what was the first thing you said about confidence or something?

Insecurity.

Insecurity, yeah.

It's a great question.

I like this.

I like this conversation.

I always have to talk about messaging, but I like talking about other stuff more.

You know, the best thing you can do if you have insecurities is figure out some place that you can win.

You know, I don't, I don't know that I'm not a psychologist, but I don't know that you can look in the mirror and

get yourself to be confident.

I think it requires

a few wins.

And so you find chess or you find basketball or you find music, you find podcasting, you find.

you know, whatever it is, just a place that you can excel.

For me, that was writing.

I figured out I'm a a decent writer.

So I started writing books and got some confidence there.

And then honestly, man, I lost weight, got into a little bit better shape.

And,

you know, they say confidence comes from the inside.

I'm not quite sure.

I agree with you.

Are you really?

Yeah.

I just saw an amazing podcast.

It's called Diary of a CEO.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I love that.

Great show, but this FBI agent just came on.

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That's great.

Except, how is Aries tech?

You got to master one thing first.

Yes.

And then once you have confidence in that area, you can apply it to multiple areas.

Yeah.

But a lot of people give this advice of just faking it, but with confidence, really hard to do that.

I don't think you should fake it.

I think you should be honest, but I think you should try your ass off.

Yeah.

And master something.

I like the idea of trying to figure out, it may not happen, but it's a beneficial exercise nonetheless.

Try to become the world's best at something.

So you got to find your little micro niche, right?

Like if you want a controlling idea or a tagline for your business, I'm going to kick anybody's ass.

I'm going to come up with a really, really good one.

And probably

five, six out of 10 times of, you know, I'm going to beat you.

And to me, that's a really nerdy, weird thing to be good at.

But it's, I hang my hat on it sometimes and it's given me a lot of, you know, it's given me a lot of confidence.

Yeah, but I realize we should all be like children, child of God and are unconditionally, we've, but human beings aren't like that.

And God is, but human beings aren't.

So I think the way we view ourselves, like, just get really, really good at something.

Absolutely.

And especially if it's something that serves other people in some way uh i think it's it's a confidence builder yeah which taglines are you the most proud of you've made a lot but just came back from uh national security their tagline was like defend the defend our freedom protect the future or whatever and i think we're going to ship um

intelligence prepares us to win

you know because they've got to go into congress and they've got to present They've got to get an authorization called 702 from Congress, which authorizes national security to billions and billions of dollars.

They got to do this every freaking year.

So to walk into the room and say, hey, you know, the reason we're talking about national security is because intelligence prepares us to win.

The first thing that it does is it says, here's what we deliver.

The second thing that it says is if we don't deliver this, we're going to lose.

So that's a really freaking good tagline.

What you want to do with any organization or any person, or if you're a leader, or even with your podcast, you want to associate what you offer with the survival of the person paying attention to you.

Wow.

And if you, if you, because human beings are designed to survive, they're, they're, that's the number one thing that they think about all day long is how am I going to thrive?

How am I going to survive?

How am I going to protect my assets?

Am I going to gain assets?

How am I going to

gain status or associate with somebody who might, you know, it all sounds fairly utilitarian, but

it's true.

And so if you want to sell a product or

have people respect and admire you, be known for helping other people survive in some way.

Yeah.

And the way I say it is become a survival asset.

You know, the reason we're attracted to you, I just met your, your lovely fiancé.

You know, I hate to say it, but the reason you're attracted to her is because she's a survival asset in some way, right?

She's a good friend.

She's a nurturer.

She makes you laugh.

She calms you down.

She eases anxiety.

You know, she's a good hang.

Same thing with you, right?

She's looking at you going, that dude probably is going to be a good dad someday.

He's got a stable mind.

He doesn't blow his temper.

You know, you see what I'm saying?

Yeah.

We think love is unconditional.

It's very conditional.

And by the way, isn't it very loving of you to be a good survival asset for her?

Like, that's a very other-centered thing to do.

So it's not like we're manipulating people.

We want to be a survival asset.

So, you know,

one of the things that I do is I go into companies and, you know, pretty quickly try to figure out what do you offer that's helping people survive.

And then how do we articulate that in the form of a tagline or a controlling idea or a one-liner landing page copy things like that and um

and it's a fun it's it's like it's it's not playing chess it's like doing a crossword puzzle you know it feels like you're just kind of figuring out a puzzle yeah i feel like the biggest brands are really good at that they're really good at the psychology aspect they are you know if you have a really big brand like coca-cola or nike you can afford to be more vague and elusive

um

most small businesses try to do that and they fail uh because we all know what a coca-cola is like we've all tasted it.

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We all know what Nike shoes are.

If you have a small brand, though, you've got to be, you have to be much, much more clear.

And so I don't like using big brand examples very much

because they,

you know, they get to cheat the system a little bit.

Yeah, they got time on their side.

They've been around for been around a long time.

You'll love this.

There's a billboard outside my office and it says sitting the fence question mark.

Call a cowboy.

That's it.

It's got a picture of a cowboy.

And by the way, the cowboy is spelled with a K.

And I'm like, that's a giant waste of money.

So I, you know, I do a little due diligence.

I find out they build fences, right?

Yeah.

And, you know, you can sit there, you know, people are buzzing by this thing at 60 miles an hour.

That's a wasted billboard.

They spent money.

But if they would have just said, hire a cowboy to build your fence, they would have sold a lot more fences.

And so, you know, clarity is key.

It's more important than being clever.

Have you ever seen a billboard work?

Like, has one worked on you?

Yeah.

Well, I don't know if it worked on me, but it's it's the most effective billboard i've ever seen probably will never be topped and it's it just says gun show

gun show march 7th and it's like bright yellow like there you go so for a conference it's yeah yeah that's extremely effective i've seen that one actually i think yeah yeah there's a lot in vegas man we got them everywhere yeah and most of them are waste Most of them I don't remember.

Yeah.

Sometimes it'll be like a magic show that I want to go to, but it's already in my head that I saw the guy somewhere else.

So it's more like a reminder.

You guys go to shows?

Yeah, you know, being in Vegas, I feel like it's part of the culture here to go to shows.

What problem do you think your podcast solves?

I'm just curious.

Like, if you could articulate it.

Yeah, that's great.

I think it's mostly kind of entertainment or entertainment.

So I have to sprinkle that in to get views.

Right.

But I do want to help people.

Yeah.

So

like it's an education podcast.

I want to educate people.

And is there a specific area?

Self-explanatory.

Chris Williamson, you know, he's a great show.

Great show.

Yeah.

He's, yeah, he's great.

And, you know, that's kind of how he angles himself.

Huberman sort of owns the health.

Health protocol.

I mean, Atia owns longevity.

Dr.

Becky owns parenting.

So I battle with this.

Do I want to niche down more like that or should I stay as broad as possible?

I mean, what you're doing is working, so it's hard to argue with you.

But

usually, if you're getting started, you'd want to niche down.

You'd want to own.

I call it owning a problem.

Right.

So if you're going to own a problem,

you get, you know, if you can own like how to get a date or, you know, how to, how to train a dog or how to, you know,

you can become the world's leader in that as long as you don't talk about anything else for a long time.

I agree because I started niched actually.

What did you start?

It was a marketing business podcast.

Oh, okay.

But you can only talk about making money so much before it gets boring.

Yeah.

So after like 100 episodes of that, I was like, let me talk about other aspects of life.

There's more to life than just making money.

Yeah.

We've actually tried a podcast about

things that succeeded, kind of analyzing why they succeeded.

And we've seen the

viewers uptick when we actually niche down even further into just the message.

Wow.

So what messages did they use to succeed?

Or what messages?

We just did one on Southwest Airlines, you know, fumbling the,

they're going to start charging for business.

I saw that.

That was a big PR nightmare for them.

Yeah, big PR nightmare.

So we actually, we've talked about that.

And I expect that it will do better since we niche down a little bit further.

I'm curious, though, whether or not that will test out to be true.

Yeah.

And they're also going to arranged seating.

I think that was a big deal, right?

I'm all for it.

You like it?

Yeah, because, you know, you like that thing in your stomach of like, am I going to be sitting in the middle seat?

I will.

I'm over that.

I've been C59 on some of those Southwest flights.

It's the worst feeling.

And I'll say it.

I love it when there's, I love it when there's two big guys and I'll always joke like, hey, can I get in there?

And they're like, are you serious?

I'm like, I'm joking.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Being next to a big guy on a plane is not a fun stuff to be.

No.

But yeah, Southwest, we'll see how they pivot from that.

I always like seeing how companies kind of pivot from PR nightmares.

I gave him some advice on the podcast.

Oh, you did?

Yeah.

What'd you say?

I said you need to,

well, first of all, you can only mitigate the damage.

It's not going to be a positive.

This isn't going to be a win.

But you can mitigate the damage.

And so my recommendation to the CEO was

you need to use the line, we are being forced to upgrade the Southwest customer experience.

You know, because of market demands and competition in the market, that sort of thing, we've got to pivot our strategy.

So I like the word forced because it says this isn't something we want to do, but then, yeah,

we're going to charge you more money, but you're going to get an upgraded experience.

Yeah.

And just mitigate the damage as much as you can.

We'll see if he listens to the podcast.

We'll see.

It's crazy how important certain words are and how they're everything.

Words build build your whole world.

Just one little word added in that sentence can change it.

Yep.

Words, the words that everybody listening right now, the words that come out of your mouth will build your future more than anything else.

Even more than what you do.

Wow.

Even more than who you know.

The words that come out of your mouth will build your future.

And you should choose them very carefully.

And I think there are some rules.

Don't be too disdepating.

you know too self-deprecating i i i i that was a coping mechanism for me for years it's just very self-deprecating being hard on yourself yeah i mean hard on myself but also just like kind of making fun of myself as a way to not come off as a threat

and i think it cost me because you started manifesting it right yeah i started manifesting it and people stopped taking me seriously right you know yeah you got to be careful what you're saying yeah yeah a little bit yeah i could definitely relate to that i used to be very pessimistic did you really?

What happened?

Super.

Did you read some books that?

I was more like podcasts and audio books and YouTube videos.

Yeah.

But books helped, but environment, honestly.

Like you just got away from some of the people who were negative?

That helped the most because I grew up in a very pessimistic environment.

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Well, just curious, like parents got divorced.

And

they were both so negative about, bitter about how it ended, I guess.

And then never let go of it.

So I'm around that, seeing both sides every day.

You have siblings?

No, only child.

Oh, wow.

So that was huge for you.

Yeah, that probably played a role in it, too.

How old were you?

I was fourth grade when they got divorced.

Wow.

So I had to deal with that on my own.

Man, do you have a, can I just be frank?

Do you have a chip on your shoulder?

I did.

A lot of people who are successful.

That's the reason I'm here, man.

Yeah.

A lot of people who are successful, they have a chip on their shoulder.

Yeah, that used to fuel me a lot.

It's not as strong as it used to be.

What was the state?

What was the fuel?

What was the chip about?

Like, for me.

For me, the chip was

we grew up very, very poor.

My dad left when I was a kid, so I never really knew him.

Yeah.

I chased him down and met him when I was 35.

Why not?

We got to dive into that later.

Yeah, maybe.

And

it was, I'm going to prove to the world that I'm not white trash.

And that fueled a lot of the drive.

Yeah.

So mine was, we grew up middle class.

So I don't think finances was the main reason, but mainly proving people wrong.

Huh.

I got bullied a lot.

I think even my own parents kind of doubted if I would be successful or not because I didn't go the academic route.

Yeah.

And that was all my mother knew coming from China, coming from best colleges.

So that was a big contentious point.

So I don't even think, like, she watches every episode.

I don't even think she believed in me at a certain point.

And she'll say this herself, you know, like we used to argue all the time about grades and everything.

I think, yeah.

A similar experience.

I published my first book without telling my family.

Wow.

And I brought it home for Christmas.

What was their reaction?

They were shocked.

They were like disbelief.

They didn't even know you were a writer.

No clue.

Wow.

And it was totally disbelief.

Like, I can remember the

eerie feel in the room of just like,

what is this?

What is some sort of con game?

Yeah, some sort of prank.

Wow.

Because you were just ashamed of talking about?

No, because from their perspective, I was an idiot and because mostly because I was an idiot.

But, you know, went off for a few years and figured out how to write and put together a book.

Were you naturally gifted, you'd say, when it came to writing?

I don't know if I was naturally gifted.

I was naturally obsessed.

You know, I'm curious about how much

people who succeed are gifted or are they just obsessed?

Like, do they actually have an obsessive drive, which makes it look like they're gifted?

Have you seen the Kobe Bryant documentary?

No,

I saw the MJ one, not the Kobe one.

The MJ one was incredible.

Yeah, that was a good one.

But if you watch the Kobe one, you know, I'm sure they're similar, but,

you know, his dad played basketball in Italy.

He grew up in Italy.

And you can see him on the side of the court during professional basketball games, and he's dribbling the ball and he's watching his dad.

And you see that obsession being born in him at a really early age.

And then, you know, it's a shame that like, you know, at the height of his career, people would say we're so gifted.

It's sort of insulting.

Yeah.

There's a guy, you know, have you ever heard a guy named Henry Cloud?

No.

He's a guy I got interviewed.

He wrote a book called Boundaries.

It sold like millions of copies.

10 million copies.

Like you've never heard the term boundaries.

Yeah.

Henry coined that term.

Wow.

Yep.

And I've gotten to know him a little bit because he lives in Nashville and he's, he is the most sort of savant-like person I've ever known when it comes to relationships.

Like he, like, you can be struggling with something and he'll just go, well, you know, I was dating a gal and We were just having some trouble.

And I told him, like, maybe 30 seconds.

And he said, did her father die when she was 13?

I kid you not.

I kid you not.

And I'm like, how the hell did you know that?

He's like, well, this, this, and that.

And

I used to say he was gifted.

And then I realized what actually happened was in his late 20s, he got a radio show

and he started taking calls on the radio show.

And he did this for like, I don't know, 15 years.

So every day he's taking five and six calls, figuring out people's relationships and giving them some really good, healthy advice.

That wasn't a gift.

That was earned.

He worked through that and he got really, really good at it.

And if you say, okay, Dom, why are you good at messaging?

I've written about 15 books.

So how many hours is that trying to figure out how to say something succinctly?

And so.

Is it a gift or is it something that you just got obsessed with?

You know, you're on track to 15, 20 years from now, maybe be one of the world's greatest interviewers.

You know, maybe that's not where you go,

but you're certainly on track to get there.

It's a goal of mine.

Yeah, six interviews a day.

Come on.

Yeah.

You know, you're going to be, you're going to be asking very, very intuitively thoughtful questions.

And

you might even say to yourself, well, you know, I guess I just have a knack.

You don't have a knack.

You put in thousands and thousands of hours.

That's how I started.

It was awful.

Yeah.

My first few episodes, trash.

Really?

Did you throw them out?

No, I'm going to keep them just to look back and laugh on it.

Were you nervous or what?

Nervous, not confident.

um i was always an introvert so it just wasn't natural for me to talk to people yeah i had to rely on co-hosts why podcasts how did that happen

yeah it's interesting like i sold a company and i had money um you sold a company yeah well you did prove your parents wrong didn't you yeah what just real quick i'm curious yeah crypto space right time oh gotcha yeah right time right place it was during the bull market it was perfect divine timing like if i waited it wouldn't have been worse did you do the programming yourself or uh it was a crypto marketing agency agency.

So I just got companies getting the space.

Got it.

Yeah.

Okay.

So it was great timing.

So I have all this money and just I'm depressed.

It's crazy.

Like I'm literally sleeping 12 hours a day, waking up.

Depressed because you thought you got everything that life could give you and it wasn't enough?

Yeah.

That's pretty much.

That's a gift.

I had a house.

I had an amazing girlfriend, dogs, everything I ever wanted growing up.

I had it.

And that's a

luxury to realize that.

Yeah.

A lot of people would chase that their whole life and never quite get it.

So they never actually get to realize it's empty.

Yeah.

Super empty.

Yeah.

And then there's, so what happened in the secondary pursuit?

Like they realized that was empty.

You didn't kill yourself.

You hear it?

I didn't kill myself.

Did you think about it?

No.

But my family has a history of it.

Okay.

Grandfather, father both did it.

And my, uh, we don't have to get too personal, but other family members dealt with it.

Well, I'm sorry about that.

Yeah, it's crazy.

So I knew that could be a possibility.

So I was really aware of that.

Yeah.

um but yeah months of that went on and then started the podcast did that help helped so much this is a form of therapy it is do you know um i interviewed pete carroll seattle seahawks and

he said he said something interesting in the interview he said um

he said donna had the luxury of winning early

i was like i've never heard anybody say that What do you mean you had the luxury of winning early?

He said, well, I was an athlete, so I won some contests

and

realized there's a diminishing return on success.

And he said, when I started helping other people win, there was no diminishing return.

He said, it's only gotten better.

Wow.

It's only gotten more and more fulfilling when I use my abilities to help somebody else win.

And he said, that's why I'm a coach because

it's just more fulfilling and it just gets better.

He's coming here.

I love that.

That's cool.

Yeah, he's going to win here too.

Yeah, I hope so.

We're suck right now.

he'll he'll turn around yeah we've had a few rough seasons but no that's so true and that might play into why a podcast because i'm seeing the messages i'm getting now and all the people coming up to me and it feels amazing yeah man it does and yeah and and kind of beating your own chest doesn't do it i don't know anybody do you know any narcissists who are actually happy that's a good asked question um narcissists that are happy

no

I know a lot who are driven.

I know a lot who are famous and successful.

Well, there's a lot of entrepreneurs that are narcissists.

Yeah.

CEOs.

I think way higher than normal.

Yep.

They did studies on this.

I think I have some of those traits, by the way.

Yeah.

You probably do too.

Well, yeah, I've taken the test.

I mean, not the narcissistic personality story.

I mean, that's crazy.

No, that's not terrible.

But I've taken the dark child test, the one where he has takes

60 out of 100.

Okay, I haven't taken that.

I bet you.

I bet you.

I think, you know, I heard George W.

Bush get interviewed once, and somebody said, you know,

are you a narcissist?

And he goes, well, you kind of have to be if you you think, if you think you want to, if you think you deserve to be president.

I was like, that's a really nice, honest way of answering that.

It's a very non-narcissistic way to answer that question, by the way.

I can see it, though.

Yeah, but you have to have, you have to, you know, why should you have a podcast?

You know, and so it's, I think it's a, it's a,

you know, who am I to write a book?

Literally, I'm going to sit down and write 300 pages that I think you should read.

I mean, that's got to be a little bit narcissistic.

Yeah.

Right.

But at the same time,

I think you should read it.

And I think, and when other people read it, they think they should read it too.

So I don't know.

I'm always asking myself.

It's an interesting one.

It's a very interesting one.

It's portrayed so negatively.

It's per se.

Yeah.

But

I think the belief that you can do something,

the sort of obsessive,

delusional idea that you could build a company or something like that, or

walk into the national security and say, here's how I think you ought to talk about, you know, what you guys do.

Yeah.

And in a room filled with people who are infinitely smarter than you are, you know,

there's got to be some sort of like little bitty narcissistic thing going on there.

Do you find your ego coming up once in a while?

Like, you got to keep it in check.

I find my ego coming up, but it's in a negative way.

I don't find it coming up in that I'm better than you.

I name drop.

When I get, when I feel insecure, I'll name drop a little bit.

I'll do that too.

Or

I'll drop my accomplishments, you know, like I've probably done on this podcast three times.

So tonight when I go to bed, I guarantee you, Sean, I'll sit there and go, just such a dumb thing.

How did you, that's so embarrassing that you did that.

Yeah.

But I also have learned, you know, as I've gotten older to be very, very forgiving and gracious.

Not forgiving isn't the word, accepting.

I accept the fact that I'm, that I am both very selfish and very good.

You could be both, you think?

Oh, yeah.

There's a zero question.

Yeah, I think so, too.

People try to put you in one bucket.

Yeah.

I love my wife more than any woman on this planet.

And like, that chick's hot.

So it's like, it's like, I don't.

That's just human nature.

It can't stay.

Yeah, it's human nature.

And then, like, I, I will die for my daughter, you know, she just means the world to me, but it's like, gosh, she's so freaking annoying right now.

Please stop whining.

You know, so I've, I've come to terms with the fact that,

you know, we're good.

We're good and we're uh self-centered and i don't think you know we can we can slowly become less self-centered is i think is a good healthy journey but i don't kick myself around for it anymore yeah well i think that awareness of it is just the first step for most people if they're not even there yep yeah the name dropping that's probably my worst habit too are you being serious yeah because i'll be in the i haven't noticed it once really well i don't do it on the pod look but like when i'm in the sauna like at your gym yeah i just i don't know i can't help myself i'll just start name dropping podcast guests that have been on.

People ask me.

See, you and I would make good sauna conversation because I don't notice it.

I'm like, oh, what was that dude like?

I don't see you.

They see that as name-dropping.

But I know I'm doing it.

I know I'm doing it.

And I'm just.

Yeah, it's definitely an insecurity thing for me, too.

Cause I got bullied a lot growing up.

Totally.

And then you'll meet people who like.

You'll talk to them.

You'll know them for years.

And then you find out like they knew Elvis and they've never talked about it.

That's just such respect when you meet somebody that could do that.

Absolutely.

I was like, no way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Shout out to those people that could hold it in like that.

That's just insane to me.

It is insane.

Have you ever met somebody who is extremely, extremely, extremely accomplished and wants like almost to be invisible?

Like they don't even tout it.

Yeah, they don't even have social media.

Who?

I've had a few on the show.

They're just like billionaires.

They don't have any social media.

They're not talented at all.

And they're cool with it, but it's a rare breed.

It is.

These days, especially because comparison is everywhere these days with social media.

Yep.

Yep.

I have a buddy named, I'm a clothes guy a little bit because I was always so fat I couldn't wear anything I wanted.

Now I lost weight.

I'm like, I'll like try to find clothes that look good.

And

I got to be friends.

I'm going to name drop.

I got to be, I'm going to name drop to somebody nobody even knows about, but his name is Spencer Birch.

He created, he was instrumental in creating the double RL brand with Ralph Lauren.

I think Spencer makes the absolute best clothes on the planet for me.

Wow.

Like by far.

I got to try this out.

Double RL.

It's kind of a Western,

Western-ish brand, like,

I don't know, hipster Western or something.

Like Post Malone, all those guys, they all wear his

sing about his clothes.

That dude could absolutely give a shit whether you know who he is.

And he, and like, he means it.

He just does not.

It means he just, it's an annoying to him.

That's impressive.

That you would, that anybody would find out what he does or you think it was always like that or you think he just got so i don't know i i don't know him well enough i've only we've fished part of part of a little fishing group we go out um

i really don't know he's a he's uh he's probably gonna get pissed because i'm talking about it um but he's he's um

it's more than over himself

I've met a lot of people who are over themselves, which is really, it's really amazing, comforting to meet those people.

I think a guy like Spencer is is sort of over

the idea of success kind of period.

You know, like he, he's doing it because

he's good at it and he likes the way that suit looks, you know, and he's trying to find some like 1920s train uniform conductor and turn it into a modern suit.

That's cool.

Tuxedo kind of a thing.

He just loves playing that game.

I wonder, you know, I also wonder the opposite, like how many, how many people are really successful because they're driven by sort of narcissistic tendencies.

They need to be in front of people, impressing them at all times.

And that can make you very, very successful.

Yeah, I like more of those, I think.

You what?

No.

I think there's probably more of those than the latter.

Yeah, probably so.

Yeah.

I wonder if you'll ever get to that point where you just stop caring about everything.

You're just in your own world.

That would be, you know,

a lot of insecurities would have to go away.

I love how honest you are.

Yeah.

I find myself getting

caring less and less as I get older, actually.

Yeah.

Like 10 years ago.

And also as you get more successful.

Yeah, that could be it too.

That definitely could play a role.

Because it's not like a dangling carrot anymore.

Yeah.

But I remember like when someone made comments about my appearance 10 years ago, I would actually take it to heart.

I would, I still do that.

Oh, you do?

Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah, now I don't.

People call me broccoli head.

People call me like.

Are you serious?

And it doesn't mean anything to me.

I don't.

Yeah, I don't care anymore.

I think when you just get berated on social media every single day, you kind of get numbed to it.

you know because i spawn a lot of do you think you have uh an internal locus of control more than an external locus of control and it's maybe shifted yeah if your identity comes from inside you and who you who do you know you are i think i i'm knowing myself better and better as time goes on is there therapy involved in that tried therapy when i had agoraphobia what's agoraphobia fear of leaving your house are you being serious yeah i couldn't leave my bedroom for a month holy i would have a full-on panic attack and collapse that's insane crazy i thought that would be the rest of my life at a certain point when I was in that phase.

And how did you get out of that?

So it was from a lawsuit.

I thought I was going to lose everything.

Somebody sued you.

Somebody sued me.

I was like 20 at the time, super young, never got taught about any of this stuff.

Yeah, that can scare the heck out of you.

Yeah.

If it went to trial, I would have been bankrupt.

Is it the cybersecurity argument?

It was TCPA.

Have you heard of that one?

I won't.

Telephone Consumer Protection Agency.

Okay, maybe not.

Basically, every text that your business sends out is a $500 fine if you don't have this checkbox saying that you could text your customers.

And I sent out tens of thousands of texts.

So it would have been, yeah, it would have been bankruptcy.

And somebody sued you?

Somebody sued me.

Yeah.

So what happened?

Kind of them wasn't emailing.

They could call you and say, hey, man, you need this box.

Yeah.

Well, they were emailing my customer service agency and they weren't forwarding me the emails.

And they eventually just sued because I wasn't responding.

And that took you in your room?

Took me in my room.

Dark place.

Man.

Combine that with some Xanax.

Ooh.

Not fun.

Not fun at all.

So was the lawsuit being dismissed or whatever?

Or whatever?

Once it got dismissed, that helped a little bit, but it was still lingering.

And then I infected.

Which makes you feel like there's like the devil's out there.

I mean, you could get screwed legally quick these days.

If you're not prepared mentally and financially, it could ruin you.

Yeah.

Like so easily, too.

That's why when I see Trump getting sued all the time and he doesn't seem to care, it's like super impressive to me.

I think he cares.

I think he's used to it.

And I think he has, he knows how to play the game.

Yeah.

You know, he's got really, really thick skin, but I think he cares.

I think nobody wants nobody,

you know, he's also a corporation, right?

So he's not actually being sued.

Right.

You know, some entity that he's probably got 700 corporations and one of them can go bankrupt and it won't affect the others, you know, and all that sort of stuff.

you know he knows the strategies and he's got some really ferocious lawyers too he does but now i realize it's inevitable like if you're going to be in business, you're going to get sued.

Yeah.

So I didn't know that at the time.

Yeah.

I get sued about once a year.

Yeah.

Same.

We always settle.

We always settle.

It's been about one a year for me.

Yeah.

Crazy, right?

It's absolutely.

I'm out here just trying to podcast.

It's, it's funny how expensive being successful is.

I mean, I'm allocating a budget just for legal now.

Are you?

I'm at that point where I need to.

What is it?

Who would sue you?

Like my previous lawyer sued me.

I had to settle with him.

Holy mackerel.

Yeah, it's crazy.

That was a big settlement.

How old are you?

I'm 28.

Jeez, man.

It's not fun.

You're 50.

Who are you going to be?

Here's a good, here's a question.

What is all of this preparing you for?

Hmm.

Yeah, that's deep.

Right.

What, like, have you ever thought

this is preparing me for something?

I think there's something big ahead, man.

The trajectory of the show right now is just insane, great.

Really?

Yeah, this is, I mean, the White House is inviting me to start doing interviews there.

Like, it's getting crazy.

It feels like a movie sometimes.

Yeah.

I don't know.

And by the time I'm 50, that's crazy.

Yeah.

It comes quicker than you think.

Yeah.

There's, you ever read Victor Frankl?

No.

You got to read a book called Man's Search for Meaning.

Okay.

Victor Frankl was this

psychologist.

He lived in Vienna.

He actually.

He actually,

I don't know if he knew Sigmund Freud or he contended with Sigmund Freud.

Anyway, but

he would

take his patients who were suicidal,

and he believed that

the cure to a lot of anxiety and depression was actually a sense of meaning, where

Freud was saying man was driven by pleasure.

Like he gets up in the morning and he pursues pleasure.

Franco says, no, he pursues pleasure when he can't find meaning.

It's how he distracts himself.

But what he really wants is meaning.

And meaning,

Frankl said there's a three-part formula for meaning.

One is have a project that you're working on,

be building something, a family, a business, a podcast, which is why I asked the question about what did that podcast do for you?

You know, if you have agoraphobia and

you're shut down, you start a podcast, that would be an actual prescription from Victor Frankl.

Wow.

He would say, go start a podcast.

Like, go serve, go serve, go do something.

And the second thing was, he said, you need to do this in community.

So, like, that fiancé of yours, she's better than Xanax.

She's better than way better.

Yeah, she's better than an antidepressant.

Yeah.

Like, I got married 10 years ago, and I'm a different dude.

I bet.

Different dude.

You know, so community is huge.

My boys, you know, my fishing group, some of them are here in Vegas.

We're going to go to a show tonight.

And then the third one, though, is

really deep.

He said, you have to have

community, a project that you're working on, something that you're building, occupying your time.

Can't sit around looking at your belly button.

You got to do something else.

And then he said,

I word it this way.

He didn't word it this way, but I think this is a more succinct way of wording it.

A redemptive perspective on your suffering.

Whoa.

So

what he said was, you have to figure out how getting sued

is a good thing.

And he came up, he didn't come up with that theory.

He

solidified the theory in the concentration camps.

Really?

Yeah, he was in three of them.

Holy crap.

He lost his wife, their unborn baby, and both his parents in concentration camps.

And he was in Auschwitz, Dachau.

I can't remember.

He was in a couple of them.

And he...

Even in the concentration camps, he said, I've got to figure out how

me being in this place is a a good thing.

Damn.

And the theory that he came up with was if they kill us, we go to the gas chambers and they kill us,

my death will be meaningful because it will show the world how evil the Nazis are.

That was his perspective.

I wasn't happy about it.

But

anything, I find anything that

That is the most helpful perspective I've ever found on life, period.

That if the other day I'm working on a book in New Orleans

and

it's a mini book and I'm at like 7,900 words.

And it's a little book called The Anatomy of a Messaging Campaign.

You know, we're going to sell, we're going to publish it and just give it away.

And

I went, I dropped it into Slack

and it didn't go.

So I'm like, what's going on?

So I opened back up and it was April, I don't know,

18th.

And the version was April 2nd.

And it was 1,900 words long.

Oh,

geez.

That's the worst I've felt in a really long time.

And I was awful, man.

All the stages of grief, like denial and negotiation.

And, you know, doing like, I'm even going back in the time stamps on my computer.

And you probably could have found it.

But I couldn't find it.

Was it on Google Docs?

It wasn't.

You sound like my wife.

That's exactly what she said.

Because they record everything there.

I know.

You could delete the whole document and still pull it up.

I know.

Well, I'm switching.

But

it took me about two hours.

And then I just said, okay, well,

it wasn't going to do well

because it was too long-winded.

And so this is fate telling me to rewrite it and make it shorter.

And I was like, okay, I'll rewrite it, make it shorter.

And rewrote it in one day.

Wow.

And

turned it in.

Yeah.

I was starting trying to think, what did I do with that thing?

I turned it in and made several copies of it, by the way.

I think that skill set, some chick dumps you, man, and you got to say,

hey, two things here.

One, I got to learn whatever lesson I got to learn here about why.

I may not be attractive to the opposite sex.

I got to do something about that.

So that's a gift.

And second, five seven eight years from now i'm gonna be married to the the most amazing woman ever and it wouldn't happen without this but you got to live that you got to figure that out right there so it doesn't take you down um

i i had a book come out when i was in when i was your age called blue like jazz and that book spent 42 weeks on the new york times bestsellers list yeah

and i grew up really poor and that book made me some money i remember getting checks for like a couple hundred grand holy crap I would, um, from a book?

That's crazy.

Yeah.

I would go to the

bank with that check to deposit.

That's what you did back then.

Yeah.

Now I scanned it on my phone.

Yeah, exactly.

And I would be like third person in line, but the really, really hot teller was going to get the fourth person.

So I'd like that person.

So I wanted to

drop that check.

Can you put this in my account?

That's what a dorko was.

But

and I

paid off my house and

was very smart with the money.

And I sold my house because I was going to buy a different house in Portland.

I lived in Portland at the time.

And I sold my house, had the money, and the house that I wanted got bought out from under me.

And so I'm sitting here with my entire life savings off of a New York Times bestseller.

And I had a short-term investment six months come up.

Said, well, you can invest in six months.

And, you know, six months, you'll get the money back.

So just start looking for a house now.

And I sunk the money into that, lost it all.

Whoa, every penny.

And I remember a week crying,

thinking it's never going to happen again.

The chances of you writing the New York Times bestseller are very, very slim.

And

the chances of being paid anything like what I was being paid at that time, very, very slim.

And I remember having to, about two weeks in, wasn't suicidal, you know, kind of like you, but just like

could have gone there, you know?

Yeah.

Had just started dating.

It was like 12 years ago, just started dating the woman who's now my wife.

And

now I don't have any money.

Right.

You want to tell her?

No, I told her.

But, you know, women are attracted to, you know, power, looks, money.

I only had money and now I don't have that.

And

so I remember forcing myself, like just sitting down and just saying it over and over, saying, That will be the best thing that's ever happened to you.

That losing all that money will be the best thing.

You will look back 10 years from now, and this will be the best thing that ever happened to you in your entire career, guaranteed.

And I just said it over and over.

That was 12 years ago.

And today,

my wife and I give away more money every year than I lost on that day.

Wow.

We give it away,

you know, to anti-human trafficking causes,

to friends who need money, to, you know, that sort of thing.

And I guess this is, you know, I'm supposed to be talking about messaging and stuff.

This is so much more important.

If you can figure out what Victor Frankl is talking about here, a redemptive perspective on your suffering, like every, it's not easy, but

what he said is like your subconscious is going to list automatically without you trying every single way and every single reason that you are doomed.

He said, but you can take your executive brain and make a second list of reasons that this is actually a blessing.

And he said, what happens is the spotlight will then shift from the negative list to the positive list.

And you will begin to live out of that positive list and you will make it true.

More likely to make it true.

And I've seen that over and over and over.

i love that over and over that's like the opposite approach to the victim mentality yeah yeah yeah i think victim mentality is the cancer yeah i agree you know i grew up with that same i think everyone did really i'm a lot of people i mean you don't have it now though right not as much maybe i'd say almost can't yeah i feel like it's completely gone now but yeah i i had it yeah i go back into it yeah sometimes i'll down myself a little bit and take you know put the blame on someone else yeah it's easy to do that it's hard not to yeah i've i've tried it's been trying to do this pull-up challenge this year i'm trying i'm trying to do like three sets of five pull-ups in january three sets of six in february three sets of seven in march three sets of eight you know

and i hurt my wrist

and

now i can do them like every three or four days because my wrist just isn't healing

and

this sounds like it sounds so petty But that mantra of like, dude, you're getting old.

You don't heal fast.

You know, you're not as young as you used to be.

And this is the future.

It just gets worse from here.

Your body starts to fall.

Like that whole thing is just, so I'm like, okay, well, let's take the executive brain out, make a list.

This is actually very humbling.

You're going to have to work harder.

You'll be more proud, you know, whatever.

But

anyway, that's a good skill set.

Yeah, I love that.

You should coin a term for that mindset.

Trademarket.

Oh,

well, I wrote a book called Hero on a Mission, and it's about the four roles we play in life, victim, villain, hero, god.

And the hero mindset sounds kind of cheesy, but a hero mindset is like, bring it on, you know?

Yeah.

Interestingly, the villain mindset is about vengeance.

It's about getting even for the pain that has been given to you.

Like, if you, if you look at the villain and the hero in a story, they have very similar backstories.

The, the villain was the reason a villain has a scar or a limp in a movie is to indicate that they were hurt and that they're responding to that pain.

What's interesting is

start paying attention to movies now.

Almost every movie you watch, the hero is some sort of orphan.

Wow.

Their dad left.

Their parents got divorced.

They're, you know, think about E.T.

Well, I'm dating myself.

I watched that one.

Yeah, that dad was on the dad.

That dude's dad was gone.

Yeah.

Daniel and Karate Kid, that dude's dad was gone.

Nemo's lost his parents.

On and on and on.

They always make him some form of an orphan.

And so both the villain and the hero have a backstory of pain, but they respond to it differently.

And that the villain says,

I'm going to seek vengeance on the world that has hurt me.

And I'm going to cause other people pain because I've...

pain has been given to me.

And the hero says, I'm going to stop this from happening to anybody else.

And so they actually, they wake up and they serve the world and they try to protect the world from the pain that they experienced.

And the villain tries to cause more pain.

It's fascinating.

That is.

And if you think about how close those two are, like anybody can choose the villain path or the hero path just based on how they're processing pain.

And to me, it's.

you know, the ramifications of going into, and then victim mindset.

Victim mindset,

first of all i think america as a culture has gone from heroic mindset to victim mindset and it's moving there quicker and quicker i agree and it's costing us uh because

in a movie a victim character or in a novel you know in in terms of plot structures the victim is a bit part

movie's not about the victim the movie's about the hero

the victim only plays a bit part to make the hero look good and the villain look bad.

That's it.

They don't transform.

They don't accomplish anything.

You know, they're just there to be in pain.

Yeah.

And if you play the victim in your life, that's exactly what will happen to you.

You won't transform.

You won't accomplish anything.

You won't help anybody.

So it's, you know, it's a, it's a road you don't want to go down.

100%.

Been down there and no growth.

Yeah.

Nothing came from that mindset.

I'm curious about you, though, with the, like, what was the pivotal.

You know, for me, it was like reading Victor Frankl was actually very

influential.

Yeah, I got to see if it was one specific moment for me or just like an accumulation of events, but

I've always had a chip on my shoulder, you know, something that just fueled me.

Like, people are like, why are you filming so many podcasts?

It's just natural for me.

Yeah.

Like, I film 800 a year.

Jesus.

It's got to be a record, right?

It's crazy.

Yeah.

But I'm like, still so energized from it.

I love it.

Other people are like, I get burnt out.

Well, it's clearly been a,

you know,

Victor Frankl would say a project to work on, you know, something that,

you know, the way he says it is if you don't wake up today, the plates are going to drop.

You know what I mean?

Like you, you have to have a reason to get up.

Yeah.

You do this with your team, your wonderful team, and then

it's freaking hard.

Yeah.

And, but it serves others.

And so that's a good reason to sacrifice and actually do it.

He calls it logotherapy.

It's a therapy of meaning.

Well, Donald, this has been awesome.

I thought we were going to.

Oh, yeah, so

I really enjoyed it, Sean.

I've been looking forward to meeting you.

Yeah, likewise.

Yeah.

Can't wait to.

You're a very unique podcast host.

So I'm honored to be here.

Thanks, man.

I'll see you in Nashville soon.

We'll link your books below as well.

Thanks for coming on.

Appreciate that.

Yep.

Check them out, guys.

See you next time.