Chris Do of The Futur : Good Marketing is The Great Equalizer (Full Interview) | NeelHome Podcast

In today's episode I

interview

Christo Chris is an Emmy Award-winning designer, strategist, speaker, and entrepreneur. He is CEO and Founder of Future Comm, an online content and educational platform. I've learned a lot from Chris's content and I think you'll find a lot of value in our discussion today, so let's get into it guys, welcome to the Neal Home

podcast

today. I'm with Christo, founder of the

futur

e, and thank you very much for doing this, Chris, it's a pleasure. I'm glad to have you here. Yes, thanks. and I just wanted to say first of all your content, I'm being a totally different industry, but your content really inspired me to level up and change my whole approach to business, so I really want to thank you for that.

I'm glad to hear that. That too yeah I know their core audience is creative and I think they are inspiring people from all industries now so that warms my heart that's really

good

guys because we need that because people in our industry it is not. They're not giving us that information, so I got a technologist from the content they publish daily. One of the things that really stood out to me that you mentioned recently was that I think your dad said this, he said, um, life is very long, but your time to do it is short and a lot of people get conflicting advice like don't worry, take it easy, you know you have time, you have a lot of time, don't you know there's a long game? and I think it's but then can you expand on us by saying that we have to be patient but also impatient?

What do you mean by that? Yeah, maybe we have an agent, dad, mom, here. Yes, I imagine your dad may or may not have said similar things. you or yes, okay, I heard something interesting, I think it was dr. Jordan Peterson, who talked about this on the Value Entertainment stage and said something about immigrants, that we're talking about immigrants and immigrant mentality, this is hunger, the emphasis on education, keeping your family together and sacrifice, and He says three generations are gone. that you just become completely Americanized and there are similar statistics in terms of wealth, like one generation will lose it and by the third generation almost everything will be gone and I think about that a lot, so the immigrant mentality, whether you're from Asia or in everywhere else you come to a country to succeed you have dreams you have hopes ambitions you take on a lot because you leave a lot behind so there's that kind of pioneering attitude whether you've been here on the Mayflower or not that same desire in that hope and my dad was telling me essentially saying: I'm going to sacrifice everything I have so that my kids can have the opportunity to do something that can make this trip on the wrist worth it, so he's just trying to tell me that if you focus while you're young, while You have energy, while the appetite for risk is

great

and you have fewer things holding you back, burdens and obligations, that is your time to make it happen and he was telling me this.

All through middle school and high school, I wasn't ready to listen because at that point I had already lived most of my life in America. I'm completely Americanized in that sense and see my American friends as non-Asian Americans. friends and having fun they go out, they're dating, they're doing all kinds of crazy things and I look at this kind of repressed lifestyle. I was thinking this is not for me, but those words eventually penetrate my thick skull and I start to learn like, you know what I need to focus on now, so during my time at the Art Center in college I really sacrificed everything.

I live like a monk. I was celibate for about three years. I went to the library and the computer lab and that's where I spent my time and I realized that every time I invested in myself the dividends I received in financial terms were actually much

great

er than what everyone else was doing, so that my

good

friends are still good friends today, that would be a joke. I like dough. What are you doing? Come on, let's have fun and why are you trying to learn that 3D program? Nobody is going to use 3D. Yes, and I see the results.

That affirms something my dad taught me: you have a lot of time to enjoy. your life or you could suffer for the rest of your life and wonder what you should do at 50, so right now I'm in a very fortunate position in my life. I have almost absolute freedom, financial freedom, creative freedom, professional freedom. freedom and in a way my dad was right, yeah, so it's basically like you're trying hard to set the rest of your life up for success, yeah, and I think people have this pressure, especially from the Millennial Generation, like everyone would say that you work too.

How much do you know who you are? Yeah, a nerd or too focused on this, why don't you have fun and get some rest and relaxation and some life/work/life balance and stuff like that? So something I struggle with is how to make your partnership and everyone tells you this is it, you're not having fun are you, you just know you sucked it, something must be wrong with you but I don't think they see the returns, you know, or maybe this. and you think it's an excuse for them not to want to do it or and it's on their part.

I think we have to have short-term planning and long-term planning and I think the combination of the two is the right way. go and because also, from my father's point of view, it was always about saving for tomorrow and now that he's an old man, when was he able to cash in his chips and has he been used to this delayed gratification for so long that he didn't? He doesn't know how to enjoy, so I guess that's not a way to live either, yeah, but on the opposite side of the spectrum, if all you have is carnal pleasure, fun, and instant gratification, we can also see how destructive that can be. behavior.

I think it depends on each person about their ambitions, their goals in life and their own self-awareness as to when that happens. People like Gary Vaynerchuck talked like you're 30, shut up and stop complaining that you're not. I know what you're doing, but you're only 30, you haven't even lived half your life yet and you're telling me you're supposed to know everything, but I was on a

podcast

interview

this morning that I was talking to. Kelly Hoppen, who became an interior designer when she was 16 and I just admired that she had that clarity that focused the confidence to do that and the support to be able to do it, yeah, and now she's written nine books. about Dragons Den as an investor as an entrepreneur, she's a very well-known brand, you know, that kind of energy is focused on what you want to do, I think it pays off, yeah, and I think the other thing is that people What they go through overlooked is the fact that like them, they also think that if you've wasted your time it's too late, you know, because there are people who start this journey later in life because they may be broke, so I like it, that's something that I What I understood from Gary's content was the fact that even if you're 30 years old, yes you're 40, you still have 20 30 years of work left, there's plenty of time to start all this over again, but I just want to use it as an excuse to take it. easy and miss this period, you know, yeah, because it's an incredible time to build whatever you're going to do.

Yes, I love this quote and the sentiment and idea behind it. It's never too late to become the person you were meant to be. a story. I'm probably going to spoil some of the details here, but Grandma Moses celebrated the American painter. She started in Korea at 86 and worked in Sochi 101-102 before she passed away, so you know how old you have to work. I don't know, but I see it as an opportunity and a choice, and the longer you wait to figure it out, the less options you have. If it weren't for a passion or a talent for painting, it's not like she could go and win. the gold medal in long distance running, I mean, it could, it can happen, but it's not likely, so those are things that each of us have to weigh.

Make this decision, there is a consequence, a positive or negative outcome, in every decision you make. Say yes and change the subject to like the business aspect of what we do. I'm in a real estate and finance industry where the whole industry is based on referrals, okay, so it's kind of a good old boys club where people you know the connections that you have, they refer you businesses and it's based on, you know , sometimes it's based on just two hours in front of you or it could be based on the connections those people have, so I found that's a declining business model. go ahead because now the big players are putting out content and they're building these big machines to replace all these individual sales professionals that are in the marketplaces.

Yeah, so I found that the best way to combat that is to build your own brand and build your own audience, but I think the problem is that people rely so much on referrals. What you like in the design community is that the very concept of like is based on who you know, who you connect with, or what you do. Tell the people who have all their business coming from referrals, yes I think most companies share this common DNA unless they work with the government and even then it's still about who they know and I don't think there is much Fundamentally changed, the technology and platforms have changed. how we do it, but we still just buy things and use services and let the people who stay in our homes know that we like them and trust them.

Technology has made this much easier, so there is middleware and software that is the conduit between the two. strangers and that is displacing a lot of people, from lawyers to real estate people and everyone, software is going to replace us all and the question is how can we solve it, so we are going to use software now on social platforms so that strangers from all over The Internet world in this country and outside this country can come to know who you are and you will know who I am based on our ideas, our values ​​and the content that we publish, so we are just doing it a little.

It's easier to get noticed, it requires different skill sets, so all the word-of-mouth advertising from referrals is a really powerful tool for getting work, but if your network is small, it's one of those self-fulfilling cycles where which is a small cycle, a small group, a small network. fewer referrals and then the big dogs get bigger and bigger because their networks are so much more powerful. Yes, I think this is a fantastic time to be alive because platforms allow us all, relatively speaking, equal access to the ability to be known before I am known. Speaking of just twenty years ago, even knowing how old Facebook is 20 years ago, there were definite gatekeepers who said you're worthy of attention, and they took the form of studio executives, magazine editors, photo editors, all of them. who healed and controlled your life in your career and they had a lot of power, now their powers have eroded to a point where you can create your own fame and you can invent your own celebrity and that's a powerful thing because I'm going to hire you work with you invest in you because I know you and I feel like I connect with your ideas, who you are, your values ​​and your mission, so in this sense it's like the great

equalizer

, it just evens the playing field because when we look at the statistics of our industry there is a vast majority of people who do all the business and always, and then the rest of the business is distributed among the rest and many people complain, well, I didn't know the right people.

I write that so I feel Anyone can take this and even the playing field and you can become more known than those people who have better connections than you, yes. So do you think the lack of social media because I get a lot of rejection? in our industry so this is not the best use of your time this is a waste of time there is a lot of rubbish there you need to go back to traditional because this is a distraction so do you think the lack of social media presence in the media goes away to cook, it will be detrimental to your business in the

futur

e. 100 percent unequivocally, yes, it will hurt you and the game is being played, whether you agree with it or not, it doesn't matter because it is being moved forward correctly, yes.

You have to decide if you want to change or not. I think it's a pretty legitimate complaint to say that some people have an advantage if they were born in the right neighbor, if they had the right education, if they are connected to powerful families, if they inherited businesses and that could be true and they have an advantage, but you have to ask yourself this question: recognizing that you have an advantage does not change the circumstances of your life, it does not change anything, so you must make this decision whether it is a disadvantage or an advantage.

One way or another, depending on who you are, what are you going to do to level the playing field? for people like you and me to say that there is a playing field here, the great

equalizer

that you can get on it or not, and me. I think the problem here is until this person recognizes that he is going to be in charge of his life, his destiny and his success, untilaccept that it's up to them, they like to stay in this middle place. I feel comfortable complaining. I'm also comfortable not doing it. I'm going to be here and, to tell you the truth, if everyone was motivated and clear about what they gained in their lives, everyone would be successful, but that's not the case, yeah, and so it goes. be this group of people who are going to complain and who don't want to do it, they say they want to do it, but their actions tell you otherwise, I would say let's just ignore them for now and get in the pool when you're ready, you and I are Saying water is fine, yes, and some will get their toes wet. in someone jumps in headfirst and everything is fine, so if you are not doing content

marketing

and there is a difference between advertising and content

marketing

, those lines are a little easier for you and me to see, but from the outside they look equals, so for me advertising is talking about yourself, I think annoying people until they pay attention and it is very annoying, it is a very old way of eating attention, the new ways of creating massive value without any level of expectation and give it to other people and people who connect and who receive value. it's going to give it back to you in some way and I think that's a powerful thing that you can use to your advantage, yeah, the biggest thing that we see is that people can't understand the difference between sales mode and marketing mode, yeah.

And I think when you start you feel like you have to lead with your credentials, like you have to show people that you're the best and you're not, but what I found is that the audience doesn't care, yeah, and I do. In a way, this was kind of the realization that I discovered over the last few years, in addition to publishing content, that the consumer doesn't make decisions based on merit, a lot of times it's based on a connection or if they like working with you, that's what that You are also seeing it, yes, I was reading.

I think in Chris's loss ledger I never split the difference or maybe it was a Socratic sell. I don't remember how they say that every decision you make is based on emotion, it is from the visceral part of your life. brain and we think we are more logical than we really are, then we have a feeling about someone about an idea and we look for it and then use our logic to justify it, so they may not understand everything you are doing. You may not understand that there is a certain tone of vibe, even lighting, all these kinds of traits or very intangible things that you put into your work that they recognize and it resonates with them.

The same reason we buy luxury items. It's like something that makes us feel different the amount of care and craftsmanship that connects them and then they say maybe I like this person. Did you ever notice it? Like when you meet someone for the first time. I have a good feeling about this place. I have a good feeling. This person that they have, they are good people and like you, they don't care, yes, but this instinct and many people have learned to listen to it and tune into it, it is actually a very powerful thing if you pay attention, yes.

I bought this all the time where people are their first impression of you, it's called the primacy effect, really the imp will color all subsequent interactions, so even if you are going to provide a similar service to all your competitors, if you lead with something of value or something that made them feel this intangible feeling, everything else will be fine, you know you don't have it, you will have an unfair advantage over your competition, yeah, another thing I discovered is that as I post more content, people become He'll come up and say, "I love it." what you're doing or you just know I'm just sharing a journey of how I tried this how it worked how someone else could do it you know and encouraging people to do the same and more people will come and I feel like the online education and education space and tutoring is very

full

of fraudulent people, yes there are a lot of people who are not doing the work, they are just selling you something, so I feel like a bit like an impostor or a fraud when people ask for advice because I'm not .

I don't want to be a coach or mentor, but at the same time I want to help them, so how do you use as if? You're if you're getting all this incoming, how do you make that transition or how do you handle that? How do you handle requests from people to train and mentor them? Yeah, like you know my business is my regular daily business. I'm not in the business of providing education or mentoring and things like that, yeah, so I had a hard time with that, what's the best way to handle that properly. I think there are ideas that have emotional triggers.

The labels we put on other people on ourselves is shorthand for how we feel about people and ideas, so when you call yourself a teacher, you may have a very different idea, as if everyone listening to us or seeing this. said visualize in your mind right now what a teacher looks like to you, it could be a teacher you had in college or high school, it could be your mom or dad or someone who influenced you in your life and then describe them that way way and it becomes very clear and vivid in you and then you look at yourself and most of us have quite low self-awareness.

We would never describe ourselves like that. Many of us look at ourselves. Our inner self is like this child who walks clumsily, who is insecure and afraid. so those two things don't match up, there's some cognitive dissonance that's going on there and if that's the case, then we don't allow ourselves the label of teacher or mentor or like the person on the outside actually has a true sense of who you are. because they are free of your prejudices and your experience, they can see neons like you know who you are the guy, you are the guy, see, you are the one, you are doing the things I want to do and you will teach me that.

The way I think you get over it is by surrendering your own ego and your self-perception of who you are and you accept that this person sees something and you recognize it and then you try it, so this is what I would say if someone came to Me and I don't we feel comfortable with this to say that I don't label myself or call myself a coach or a mentor or a guru or anything if we take off the label if you want me to share with you what I know you. I have a lot of questions.

I would be more than happy to do it with you and if you feel comfortable moving forward, this is what I will charge you and we are good. Yes, that's about self-awareness and transparency. the person can make that decision, so you've done your ethical duty and then they can choose, yeah, that makes sense and I think it's like I didn't even think about this, which is probably something from 10, 20, 30 years ago, your definition is clouding what you think about today, yes, another thing I want to ask you about is prices and your value, since you talk a lot about people can build to have more value in the market and be able to compensate themselves appropriately. by their work, you know if they do a good job and how they did it in a world where more and more people do what you do, almost exactly the same as you, yes, and the price of those services is the consumer who demands the margins . they go like that, so how do we like how we fight that or stop that train?

Yeah, it's a function of supply and demand, right where if you have very limited supply and demand that's great, the value of what you do is really high and superior. Now we can expect almost everything exotic, the novelty of what you are doing will be emulated by other people, people who pay attention, does this mean that you always have to be at the forefront of novelty? I don't believe it. So now we know that this is the basketball game. If you're a really good basketball player, you make a lot of money, endorsement deals, and you'll do well.

You will be celebrated. Yes, that doesn't mean it's easier to be a good player. basketball player and if I can make that analogy like you and I know the rules of basketball you and I do, I don't know your game, we could smell LeBron James or Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan or someone like that right when you were smoking, there is no doubt, Just because you do something like content marketing or design carousels for Instagram or something and the fact that there are clones everywhere doesn't mean it's the same, so you can still stay in your category. your lane just make sure your content is really good there still has to be value there what people often confuse is that they copied the structure the form without understanding the thought process behind it what inspired this what is this person trying to do not what does it seem like I recently started producing carousels for Instagram and then I noticed a lot of people emulating something very similar to the extent that if I put a number here they put a number there, if I use this tall face they use exactly the same . font and I don't really care one way or another.

It doesn't bother me at all, although it bothers other people mainly because I say look at their carousel. What are they teaching you? You learned? What did you learn from this? and look at mine and if mine is the same or similar that means I haven't grown up and the world is catching up so now I have to stay ahead, luckily there is a pretty big gap between what I feel, what what they are doing and what I. What I'm doing and if someone can't tell the difference, that's still bad for me, yeah, so I'm not too worried.

If we look at the market, from cell phones to cars, there seems to be a pretty wide spectrum of prices for things with similar functions. and designed for very different types of people, yes, again, that's where you have to say that if I want to stay on the premium side of things to achieve a premium where people will pay more for fairly similar things, it's because I position myself well back to this. whole people out of emotion versus logic, so logically I should buy the cheapest car because it gets from A to B the one with the longest warranty, but I don't covet those other cars like an Aston Martin or for some people it's the Lamborghini or or Porsche why because they have an emotional connection to the story they tell themselves about who they are when they buy, Marty Numeira talks about this often, companies don't own brands, customers own brands and people don't want to buy things. they want to join tribes and that's what we're doing, they want to be part of this club, right, yeah, and I think you talk a lot about niches, like you know, and you reach that niche audience, I think people are trying to copy everyone because I want to appeal to everyone, yes, and you would encourage people to do the opposite, we just go deeper with the smallest group of people, right, yes, it's because of our fear that if I narrow my audience to something very small , then I'll have fewer opportunities, but it's actually the opposite, when you try to appeal to everyone, you compete with everyone and you disappear and you can't claim any kind of special distinctive advantage over anyone you know, but if you're like a surgeon ear or something or a person who has ACL surgery when the person who is really important needs that part fixed, they come to you, they don't go to the GP, they do it or the GP, they don't have sense, yeah, that's what's happening there, I think Another thing is that people are afraid of missing out on something else.

Yeah, they're trying to appeal to all these different groups of people. How do you feel when everyone copies everyone else's work? Do you see these castles? "They are completely gone, but they have it, yes, they have it, so what is your personal taste? Do you like this trend that you have inspired all these people or does it bother you a little? It amuses me and sometimes, I've been upset because even people who are my friends literally copy the same thing, why did you do that and not give it any attribution? But then I move on. It's like I don't have time for that. do for me my own personal growth and how these things challenge me and I move on because otherwise we spend our entire lives looking at what other people do and trying to claim ownership over things we don't know about I was inspired by people. designed by people, not by me, you know, why can't they have access?

I know that in the long term and even in the short term you copy someone's design or even their idea without understanding how it works, what happens underneath the surface. It's a very short-term solution, yes, and for some people it's totally fine because they copied three or four things, they get a little boost in attention, it gives them enough motivation and then they start to learn that there is one person I'm not going to. to name. who's from Australia he, someone tagged me, it's like dude, this guy is copying your content and he was doing two things, he's copying the content, he didn't give me attribution and I forgot there was a third thing, he was copying it wrong so used the exact same ideas, just using really horrible images and designs and that hurt me a little as a person who likes, cares about aesthetics and design, and I looked at it, so I commented on this very quickly.

Dude, this is not right, why would you do this and pretend it's yours? Then he immediately texted me and apologized and started saying all these things and ultimately that was a trigger for him to start writing his own content and now he's pretty successful at doing that. thisand he's getting a job opportunity, so I turned a potentially negative thing into something like hey, I just needed a little guidance, yeah, and I'm one of those believers like all of us. I know I'm not religious anymore, but we've all done it. I sinned, didn't I, I stole things when I was a child.

I think that's cool, let me do something very similar to that because it inspires me, so who am I now to sit? my high chair and Psyche cute that's not loud because it affects me no that's hypocritical I think I do think about it like in any topic like you're on one side or the other yes and there's just no advantage in even Coming into this many times, I've noticed that with these people, yes, you have a lot of enemies and you get regular comments. Yes, I get a lot of negative comments and I revel in them.

I'm like a pig and trash and Even though I do it sometimes, I look at it and my wife says, Can't you just let it go? I say no, I like to fight, let's do this. Actually, I enjoy it a lot. Okay, for most of my life, I've dealt with one. form or another of bullying and when I was smaller, younger and not as physically capable, that was a physical fight, now it is an intellectual fight or it is a fight of integrity and I am ready to participate, but what do you realize if you can bear it. the high road I encourage everyone to take the high road don't listen to the vain if you can't take the high road I encourage you to do it stay out of the mud because it will go away but what I realize is that most of the arguments, most criticism is made by people who are not even in the same universe as you in terms of their professional and personal achievements and they are angry about something and when you challenge their worldview, their best way to deal with it is to say which is like that.

It's not me, it's you, they attack you. I have invited countless trolls on the show, they have all refused, yes, all of them, every single one of them, why? Because you're going to be exposed and they won't. I am the sign of a coward, he is a coward. Now you've said it openly on podcasts, on YouTube live streams, in recorded content, and now on your show, yeah, if you have a problem with me, let's talk, yeah, and I have a theory about Why don't people show up? They don't show up because they know their credentials don't match and it's a low blow.

It really is a cheap shot. And coming on the show means that now you have to take a risk to share your point. point of view versus attacking other people they know and the last thing is that I think it's going to be an unfair fight, yes, because you're an idiot, that's why yes, and if you were smart and working on yourself and your personal growth . and development you would have your own success you don't have time to fit it in by hating other people yes that's why I don't think anyone will ever show up yes I agree with you it's crazy how they just leave sometimes I will give them a very well thought out answer and neither They didn't even respond and then deleted their comment, you know, oh, that's the best possible outcome.

I have seen that too often it is usually some mother like some other crazy insult she has. There is no logical thread to the first comment, this tends to happen, so from there it gets even worse, okay, yeah, quite a bit, and I still have fun with it and I would just try to appeal to my better side and I like it my better nature, like yeah, just ignore it. so you mentioned something growing up, you know we're both Asian growing up and you get bullied, you get picked on, you're in it, you feel like you're at a disadvantage and I felt like that led me to become an introvert.

Yeah, or maybe I was born that way, I'm not sure, but I've realized that when I network and when we do a lot of things where I don't necessarily want to talk to these people, yes, doing so is mandatory. in certain cases I make connections that way, but for the most part it really tires me out, yes, sure, but I find energy at 12:00 or 1:00 in the morning to create new content for them for the next day. Yeah, you know, and be

full

of energy for the next 2 or 3 hours because of that right, so said by the way as a true introvert.

I just say it's okay when I see, when I know when it's a type of thing, yeah, yeah, so I just fight. with this now because now I'm doing more of my personal brand and then people ask you to come talk to their group and what happens to me is that today I'm drinking this water every few minutes because my mouth is dry X I'm nervous , right, yeah, how did you do it? I know you said something recently. We're like you're very introverted and you forced yourself to do this. It gets better? Because I'm, what answer do you want to hear?

No, I'm just kidding. It gets better, okay, it gets better like everything. I think the nature of who you really are isn't going to change, but the way you process the signals in your body in your mind can change, so it's not like you don't feel it. that the knot in your stomach or the butterflies you will still feel it but instead of leaving it in that space you will say okay, that is my body saying that I am excited and you just need to reinterpret the signals so that it turns out excitement and The nerves are more or less the same in terms of the signals being sent, so the receiver of the signal must say, "I understand." I want to read the story differently and that's it.

There are a series of poems that were presented to me. by my 13 year old son where they write the poem in a way and if you read it in reverse order he says the exact same opposite words and it's really cool and soon I'll share something with my audience, literally like when you read this. It's like you're terrible, you stink and everything in life is horrible. You read it differently. It's like I never hear the negative. I am a super group. I'm worth living for. It's really strange. So it's just you reinterpreting those signals. Now, for a long time, I got really stressed out when speaking in public.

My heart pounds in my chest. I'm swallowing too much from burping. My mouth is dry. Yeah, all that kind of stuff because you're scared. The things that exposure and repetition teach your body that this is the new normal and you will get used to it. Do you fast at all? It's not okay, so if you skip one or two meals, you skip two meals or you don't eat all day the first time. to do is going to be horrible you think the world is over and Psyche your stomach is like devouring itself maybe it is to a certain extent but in time it seems to me that I could do this and you can adapt and you are a really resilient creation, a design that you can survive almost anything, so the thing is to stay in the pocket to reinterpret the signals and not wait too long to do it again because your body will forget, okay, so if you do that, the last little trick that I share with the people I train.

It's thinking about being of service to other people and not thinking about I want to look good like you know, I wear my hair, it's okay, you know, don't see me sad about that problem, yes, I am. I sound very intelligent. Am I impressing people? about how I compare to the other speakers, yeah, when you get rid of all that and just focus on can I be helpful, I'm going to help you and I can share something that I know I would. I was going to use the word teach, but since you know I use that word, can I share something that I know could help you?

Can I save you from some unnecessary pain? Can I put you in touch with a resource I have that can make your life a little less painful if I can? So I think I have a purpose for being on this stage, the rest I no longer think about and that has been the biggest mental change that has occurred in my mind and that has allowed me to go on stage and not want to do it. it works well, so when you talk to these thousands of people you're still filling those things out this year, but it's more manageable now, yeah, it's a lot more manageable now.

I remember, I think it was two and a half years ago. speaking in Seattle that right after Goff's performance I called my wife like a proud like a little kid calling her mom or something like honey, you won't believe it, so what was there? Everything's good, I mean, yeah, everything's great. I'm not nervous and I'm trying to revisit in my mind all the things that happened that day before that day so I can recreate that same feeling. Yes, I have to say that in the next talk I was a little nervous and it was like let's go back there and I think it's a ritual.

I don't think that's really important. Someone from the outside will call it superstitious, but it's just game day, welcome game day. Do you have game day? So my game. What do you think is that I basically just tried to do it? I just practiced everything oh you know, try and execute the preparation, yeah, but I realized that this turns into I followed your advice in a contour bit where you said something about the fight won. in the gym, yeah, you know, I mean, and I've noticed that then I get too attached to the script, yeah, I get stiff and it confuses me, yeah, so sometimes I've had the best results or the best created content are the best exchanges. from people when it was just natural because I know the information, yes, but trying to put it into a script made it more difficult, so there are a couple of things you can do.

This will be a combination of things that I've read that I haven't done well and things that I've done, so we'll see how it goes well when you have to give a big talk, what you're supposed to do is sit down and write your whole thing down. conversation you need a plan, you need to figure out the stories, you need to figure out the sequence and the words and the transitions that happen between moments and moments and then what they say is that then you need to record that on some audio device and play it in the car wherever you go , everything you do so it becomes part of this and then there's a process of unlearning the script, so the confidence comes from having prepared yourself to find the research and structure the story so that it's really well edited and then slowly unlearning it and let it become part of your story, the next thing I encourage you to do is try to say less and go deeper to eliminate the urgency or desire to remember all the parts of the story is a less complex puzzle to present, you can to do that.

My friend Joel Pilcher, who speaks, practically talks about one thing for 40 minutes and I'm amazed that he can do that and I'm also amazed that the audience is engrossed. in attention and I'm like what I already learned the first time you said it, which was thirty-nine minutes ago, but he's still in that pocket and that's why most of the time he's on stage feeling very comfortable, which is also puts the audience on Calm because you've seen those talks when someone comes on stage and they're super nervous and tense and they're literally reading, there are slides that I've made, that's not fun for anyone, that's not fun for you. and it's torture for us, yeah, don't do that, don't go in with those expectations, well what I changed was just having one line, ooh, to remind me of the basic point, yeah, and then it's just placeholders, yeah, So this. the slide comes up, I know what to say when I see the placeholder, yes, but would you encourage me to record the whole thing and just play it back, but I've never done it well, the other guys in the office, Matthew and Ben, they're all so preppers, no apocalyptic, but they prepare very well, so you know, they will rehearse, they will go over it again and again, but the rage with which I have to write and give new talks and adapt to what is happening.

I can not do this. Oh gosh, not that I've ever done it, but I'm just saying, here's what I would suggest: You've done the right thing: you've written the whole presentation and then you would do it now. put sentences in, then you move on to words and then just pictures, okay, that's the progression, so the picture is a cue for you to remember what the hell you're supposed to be talking about, it keeps you on the plan. a guy from Stanford who talked about this, how do you give a talk? He says that if you just wrote down questions that you need to answer, then they would be your own questions and answers and you would put them on the screen, okay, that's it, then the screen is a question for you. tell a story just tell the story and there's no wrong way to tell the story and it works pretty well yeah, I saw a talk given by Andrew Yang at South by Southwest and he said, Hey guys, there's supposed to be a moderator, but I guess that there is.

It's not one, so I'm just going to ask me two questions that I think you're going to ask me, and he does it and he's hilarious and he's not like a comedian, he's not the smoothest guy in delivery, but when I looked at him and I thought that's probably what the Stanford professor was talking about, he literally just said, So what does it mean to have a universal basic income? That's what everyone asked me. Biuniversal basic income, so it's not a face, it's not that. This is what I think and you can see the audience really liked to lean on this candidate back then, no one knew who he was, yeah, and how does it feel to do live Q&A in your speeches?

I realized that you do your thing and then you're done. Have you ever thought about opening? depends on questions and answers or do it separately, how do you feel when doing questions and answers? First of all, I love it because unless you get asked the questions, it's unpredictable, so yes, it's very difficult to deal with, but I feel like the best part comes from quality control in terms ofLike if someone provoked something I hadn't thought of or I presented something specifically to satisfy their need, you know, I enjoy it, but I wanted to know your opinion, I sure am not in control of my time on stage, okay? people say you have 15 minutes, you have 20 or 45, you had this amount of time, sometimes they say, well, we'd like to do a Q&A with you afterwards or put you on a panel and then I'll do that.

I have a small talk as a template. What I give people is my number one request for what people accept me for is to have a casual chat without talking, bring me your biggest problems and I will work with you and I even need to know what they are beforehand. I think we are living in this time where much of our lives are curated and edited so that it no longer resembles physical or bodily reality, so that we like the things we say and edit little lumps and hands, so We all live this fake life online.

I think we've lost a little bit of the art of conversation to be present in front of a person and just talk to them, so I can't go on stage having a talk prepared and just going over it with that audience interaction, what's the Well, you guys can watch us on YouTube later if you want, but there's a moment here and now where I think and I've asked a lot of people why they show up, if this were a big screen, would they feel okay and some of them they'll say we show up because there's an element of it being live and we're on the edge of our seat that something could go wrong so you're here for the car accident or so why don't we incorporate the car accidents?

Don't we try to include things that are unpredictable and spontaneous that sound a lot like questions and answers? a guy who is prepared and asks deeper, deeper questions, the dialogue that you get will be really good, it will be very meaty, yes, but there is a perception of value that I feel from the audience that, oh, you didn't prepare. just answering questions that pop into your head, yeah, and they don't realize that you just gave them a personalized answer to their specific problem, which is more valuable than the talk and was completely tailored for them spontaneously instead to prepare the talk for everyone, what more could you ask for?

Yeah, I don't want it, but that's the problem, so if you had eight speakers doing Q&A, first of all, not everyone is the same, not everyone can do this, Q&A for some people will stress them out. I love it, I prefer it, but I'm only as good as the question, so how do we fix that so that people have questions, people vote on them and then you just delete them and then you get people on stage and you just Talking to you would be great. I think it would be great if you could encourage the people who hire you to speak up.

I'm trying to get them to do this because I think that's what the audience would love and I love it too. I have taught for 15 years at Art Center and the best, the best, the most memorable, unscripted, hilariously challenging, happened in class and without planning, through reaction and action, and that's it, frameworks were invented, developed tools and real learning took place and something so unique was experienced. I'm still to this day trying to recreate that, that's cool, man. The last kind of thing I wanted to talk to you about is you know there's a lot of advice from mentors and things like that about how to do what makes you happy, just what you need. find something of your passion and try it, but I like what I like about your content and what is your message that yes, but it also has to be practical, so when someone is lost, let's say they are in the wrong career, yeah, or they're trying to figure out what they should be doing, they've wasted a few years and they're trying to figure out what's your advice on how to find it and still have it be practical, like how to pick that um for someone to be lost. in their career and if someone says now they're just not passionate about it, okay, they hate their job, they hate what they're doing, okay, so this will go back to long life, short life and delayed gratification, all that kind of stuff. of things, yeah, I think you have to realize and I grew up Catholic.

I no longer practice and I don't believe in reincarnation, so yes, there is a life, it's a small speck in the life span of the universe and I just notice you. I have this one chance why why waste it you are a miracle of biology, chemistry and science and the fact that you were born and survived why wasted I think it's really important, especially now because we live in a time where I'm not saying there should be no unnecessary suffering and death and violence, but we live in a time when we are more prosperous, healthier and longer lived than ever.

Yes, let's take advantage of this opportunity to do something that makes us happy and fulfills us. joy, as long as it doesn't hurt other people or break laws. I think we should do that and somewhere there will be a different kind of wealth, just the happiness of self-awareness and I think ultimately if you follow that you will find something that can become a career, maybe not like a career in Superstock, but a career in a way to pay for the things you have, so that's what you went through when you switched blind. into the future when you say you went through what you mean you went from doing business with clients, yeah, working with clients and then now to a new platform, and you told me you don't work with clients anymore, yeah, right? ? with making that transition or did you just get involved.

I don't struggle with the decision to stop doing one and move forward together and if to clarify for our audience the future was founded, I think in 2014 it's okay, previously it called school, so we've been doing This for a little over five years and we've barely made any money the first year, so there's an overlap between the creation of one company and the death of another. When I say death, it's still here, I'm just not actively working on it. And then the moment we decide to change, we'll always look up to someone, but I've learned now, after doing this for over two decades, that you're doing no real service to anyone by keeping half a foot in this thing and pretending the islands were separating, pick one and there was enough time to try it, so I'm taking very calculated risks here from someone else that might seem risky, but I've found out that it was during one of our typical Benefits like managers meetings that we have here and Matthew had told me why we don't stop doing this.

We worked too hard for clients to make this amount of money at the end of the day. I think we would put in the same effort. and we use the same discipline and work for ourselves, we will have exactly the same amount of money, but we will have created our product catalog, our intellectual property and we will be closer to what we want and we will be further away from what we want. I don't want any more, so when he said that it took me by surprise, I think 45 seconds later I said, let's do it right, that was it and then it was December 2018, we stopped taking work from the client, we fulfilled all our obligations and no I don't work with the client anymore, well, that's amazing, so, it's something that the seeds had been planted and then it was like you realize at that moment, yeah, like we were beta, what do you call creating beta prototypes?

Beta test, the idea to see. Yes it can be real and once the model was validated, it was a question of scale and patience, so 2019 was the year in which we were able to be a self-sustaining company without the financial help of the blind service company, well, it was a bit complicated . and there were months where we went into the red, but we ended up exactly where we needed to be, so now I can say that we have managed the future 100% financially independent and solvent, it's not like I'm tripping over piles of cash today, yeah, but that's all I need that's awesome and that's really cool so guys I hope you got a lot of this information from Chris.

For more information, please refer to future communication. They have tons of free content to educate people. Across all industries, I would encourage anyone in my industry or anyone watching this to watch it because you'll find something that would help your business or your life and then follow Chris on Instagram too because he has some great carousels. Don't steal them right or you may steal them, but it's still cool. Thank you so much for doing this Chris, thank you, I appreciate it.