Define Your Value: Own Your Identity & Growth with Jason Feifer

0:28We always recommend Shopify. You're listening to Mick Unplugged, hosted by the one and only Mick Hunt. This is where purpose meets power and stories spark transformation. Mick takes you beyond the motivation and into meaning, helping you discover your because and becoming unstoppable. I'm Rudy Rush, and trust me, you're in the right place. Let's get unplugged.

0:57Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. And I don't do this a lot, but I'm going to fanboy out because I'm talking to someone that I have looked up to and admired and followed for a long time. He is the storyteller behind Entrepreneur Magazine. He is someone whose social media is so tight that I've been following it for a couple of years and his content is truly amazing. He's a visionary. He has a future-proof mindset. He is the GOAT. And you all know I don't use that term a lot. He is the GOAT, Mr. Jason Pfeiffer. Jason, how are you doing today, brother? Oh my God, Mick, what a generous intro.

1:37I'm really glad that that was recorded so that I can play it back to myself whenever I'm feeling down. That was wonderful. It's so great to be here with you. Bro, I'm the honored one. Like when I tell you that I've been a huge fan with the work that you've done an entrepreneur for a long time and not just the title of editor in chief. You get that title because of the great work that you do. Right. Like that's just not something that you just walk into one day and say, hey, I'm editor in chief. But the way that you humanize people, the way that you study entrepreneurs, like I get so much wisdom just from looking at your years of content on things that you've learned by being around entrepreneurs, insights that you've given.

2:18Man, I just I owe you so much. You have no idea. My God, that is an honor to hear. And I appreciate the way that you said that, by the way, Mick, because you were like, you know, the title, sure, sure, sure. But this is what you really do. and I love that because I don't want people to know me by the title, to be honest with you, because in life, there are really two kinds of things. They're the things that you rent and the things that you own. And the title is something that I rent. It's not my company. It's never going to be my company. And so I rent this title for some period of time and then that time will end and somebody else will get it.

2:55And so I have always been focused on what can I own? And the The thing that I can own is my voice and my perspective and the value that I bring to others. And I hope people recognize that. And the thing that you're picking up is the thing that I have. I have this theory that all humans have the same skill. We all have one skill, and that is pattern recognition. And the thing that makes us different is that we're all good at recognizing different patterns. And the thing that I think I'm good at is recognizing patterns of how people talk and communicate and think and then how to best process and repeat that to other people in memorable ways.

3:35That's the thing that I do. And once you figure out what pattern you fit with, you can lean everything into it and you have no idea where it will bring you. Like, for example, that I've just been out there doing my thing and I had no idea that it was crossing your path, that it was meaning something to you. And that means the world. Well, it definitely means the world to me. There's so much that I picked up on a personal level, definitely on a business level. And I owe you a lot. And we're going to go into a lot of that today. And I didn't even I didn't even mention the book that probably saved my business.

4:12We're going to get there, too. You didn't know that you did that, but I did not. One of my businesses. Oh, my God. I didn't know what I was walking into today, Mick. This is incredible. I said I didn't want to fanboy on you, man, but you can ask everyone on my teams. They'll tell you. My top five people, Jason Pfeiffer, is in the top five. I don't want to upset other folks. I'm just going to say you're in the top five. Sure, sure, sure. Could be number one, but whatever. Everyone else can dream of where they are on that list. Yeah. Holy cow, man. What a true honor. Well, I'm really excited to be here and to talk about whatever you want to talk about.

4:48Well, I want to ask you the question I ask everyone. I know you listen to the show, so you know about your because, that thing that's deeper than your why. If I were to say, you know, Jason Pfeiffer, what's your purpose? Why do you do the things that you do today? What's your because? What would that be? So I do indeed know that you asked that question. I think it's a great question. I have two answers for you. Answer number one is that when I got to Entrepreneur Magazine, I was just a magazine guy. My background was in making media. And when I first arrived at Entrepreneur, originally as the number two at the magazine, and then about nine months later, the editor-in-chief left, you know, again, renting the title.

5:29And it was passed along to me. And I thought of it as just a media job, which is just the job here is to make a great piece of media. And after about a year of reworking the magazine and working deeply in the brand, I started to say yes to interview requests. And I started to go on to podcasts and television stuff, radio. And I realized that people were talking to me with an expectation that I didn't necessarily have of myself. I thought of myself as maybe a storyteller and a media guy. And they saw me as an authority. And I didn't feel like an authority, Mick, at all. It was an imposter syndrome thing.

6:05I just didn't know how to live up to the thing that they thought I was. But I realized if I could live up to the thing that they thought I was, then opportunities were boundless. And that was a personal challenge, which was, how do I think bigger about myself? How do I own ideas and identities that, frankly, I'm not comfortable doing right now? If I can push myself out of the smallness of what I thought I was into something that's bigger, that I don't even know what the boundaries are. I think that on the other end of that is tremendous personal growth and discovery and the kinds of experiences that I can't even imagine.

6:46And I just wanted to go there. And so a big part of my because was seeing that there's opportunity available. I love the word available. I'm kind of obsessed with the word available. And the reason, by the way, is because there's the things that are asked of you, and then there are the things that are available to you. And those are totally different things. The things that are available to you, nobody's asking you to do that. They may not even be that visible, but the more you search for them, the more you realize they are available. And that is the pathway to growth. I just wanted to do it because I thought a bigger life was on the other end of it.

7:18And it turns out that that's true. So that's answer number one. The answer number two is that I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. I'm sure you've had many conversations like this, where we were like, what is the point? Like, what are we working towards? Why do we do this? And what do we do with the money we've made and everything? And I wanted an answer to that, like a real answer to that. And so I challenged myself. I thought, what makes me happy on an average day? You know, it's kind of not worth asking what makes you happy on a special day because those days don't repeat. But what makes you happy on an average day?

7:49And I realized that it was this very hyper-specific thing. And it was being in physical motion, engaging with interesting people about interesting things. And so that could mean running around town. I live in New York, you know, just kind of bopping around the city to different meetings and meeting interesting people, some who I know well, some who I'm going to get to know. It could mean flying across the country for a talk. And then while I'm there, I'm also going to take a bunch of meetings. I just love kind of moving. I ask people if they'll take walks with me instead of coffees with me. And so I realized that is a state of being.

8:21This is the phrase I came up with. That is a state of being. My state of being that I want to live in is moving physically, interacting with interesting people about interesting things. And everything that I do, all my choices that I make, all the things that I commit myself to are really about either creating or maintaining that state of being. And I think that we can all step back and ask ourselves, what state of being do I like to be in? Is it a state of being of constant building? Is it a constant problem-solving state of being? Is it just about building, maintaining relationships? What's the thing, the essence, the thing that I love inside of my life?

8:58Because once you know that, then you can make decisions about what you commit to based on whether or not it creates or maintains that state. Dude, that is so amazing. And we're about to have a continuation of this masterclass that you're dropping on us right now, because you've said something and you've said it many times in different ways but the first time i heard it out of your mouth i frozen my tracks because it went against the grain of everything that we were taught in society from youth to adults you said that we often confuse our skills with who we are right i'd love for you to break that down man because when i first heard you say that I was like, wait a second, right?

9:45Like we were told that athletes are athletes, right? We were told that comedians are comedians. We were told that business people are business people. And when you break it down further, accountants are accountants. But you challenged me to say your skill set isn't necessarily who you are. And I was like, wow. And it made me change my outlook on myself first. And then honestly, how I was building my teams in the corporate level. Oh, wow. Well, yeah, you know, it came from this realization that I had, honestly, when I was struggling to understand my identity as major parts of my career change. So I started as a local newspaper reporter and I loved being a local newspaper reporter.

10:27I had dreams of being a newspaper reporter. And so it became my identity. I am a newspaper. If someone came up to me at a party and asked what I did, that's what I would say. I'm a newspaper reporter. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. But the problem is that when we tie our identities to the output of our work or the roles that we occupy, then as soon as any of those things change, it doesn't just feel like a change to our work. It feels like a challenge to who we are. And I think that is the reason why so many people hold on to what came before instead of being open to what comes next is because they are anchoring their identities in the roles or the tasks.

11:04And so we need a better way to understand ourselves. And I came to think of this as the thing that does not change in times of change. And as I met with entrepreneurs and incredible leaders, I started to hear them articulate their identities in this really interesting way. I'll just give you two examples. I remember talking to a founder of a baking mix company who said, I don't sell baking mixes. I bring joy to people through sweet baked goods. And then I was talking to the president of a cosmetics company who said, I don't sell cosmetics. I help people reclaim their sense of self. And what's happening there is really interesting.

11:43They are setting aside the thing that they do, and they are instead identifying a transferable value, something that they have that others always need so that whenever anything changes, it doesn't actually challenge that transferable value. Instead, all it does is it creates a new opportunity for them to do the thing that they already do best. And so the way in which I found to do this is to follow this framework that they just were organically talking about. It's a short sentence. It starts with I, and then every word is carefully selected because it's not anchored to something that's easily changeable.

12:23This is the mission statement for yourself that you should create. So it's the difference for me between I am a magazine editor, which is so deeply changeable. I mean, you know, Mick, I've turned off my notifications so that I can focus just on you right now, but I could have just gotten an email telling me that I am fired from Entrepreneur Magazine, at which point I am not a magazine editor. It's so deeply changeable. But how's this? I tell stories in my own voice. Seven words. Stories is this word that really anchors me because I can tell stories to you right now, but in a book, in my own podcast, in my newsletters, when I'm standing on stage talking to, you know, 500 people at Clorox or Pfizer or whatever, like I tell stories wherever I want, frankly.

13:08And there is infinite value in knowing how to connect someone's needs to a story that can help them. And then in my own voice is me setting the terms for how I want to operate at this stage of my career. So that insight helped me through that period of transition that I was telling you about earlier, where I had to go from, hey, well, wait, all I do is that I make magazines. That's all I do, right? Which is what you're talking about with skillset. Like, I just know how to do this thing and let me live inside that box of that thing. But there's another way of thinking about it, which is, what do I understand?

13:45What am I driven by? That has enabled me to develop these skills in the first place, that enabled me to get those roles. Because that thing that's deeper is the thing that truly, truly will enable us to move forward and to be grounded no matter what changes. Dude, again, that's why I love you, man. When I say that that thing changed me, it helped me a couple of years ago when, I'm not going to say I was going through a brand crisis, but it was one of those things where, and you get this, right? Serial entrepreneurs do so many things. And I remember I was talking to my mentor, Damon John, right?

14:26And I was like, Damon, I don't know how to get this message across because I feel like I'm going to confuse people. Am I a podcaster? Am I a business strategist? Do I do emotional intelligence? Like, I don't want people to feel like I'm selling something every time they meet me. And he said, Be who you are. And the moment he said that, one of your posts popped up and I was like, Jason saying the same thing. And then you were able to help me with what you just said. And so my message truly became one of two things. I either help humans emotionally connect with other humans. Right. Or, you know, I help people find their true because.

15:03And what you just said is how I took it. That evolves as I evolve. Right. That is always going to be a constant no matter what I do. Like those two things are who I am. And so that helped me because maybe I'm not on a podcast. Maybe I'm on television or maybe I'm working with the Fortune 500. But those two things are always going to be true as to who I am and what I do. So I owe that to you and I thank you more than you'll ever know. Oh, my God. I love hearing that. And I'll tell you, Mick, I travel around and I give a lot of corporate keynotes. and I have a whole segment at the start, which is all about this and helping people get to this particular mission statement.

15:47And then I hop off the stage and I run around the room and I have people share it. And I have heard the most incredible things, but two things that just popped into my head as you were sharing yours and how what you said matches what I hear from so many folks is number one, a great filter for whether or not you found the right mission statement for yourself is, is this something everyone always needs? No matter what changes, is there a need for the thing that I have and that I am? Because if you've identified that, then you are always valuable no matter what changes. You know, you may have to figure it out a little bit.

16:23There's gonna be some changes to the structure and delivery, but you know that there's a need. And what you said there about yourself could not complete that mission more. And then the other thing was finding something that feels true no matter what changes in your career or in your work. I will never forget a woman in Chicago said this to me. She had just put a thriving consulting business on hold because she had had her first child and she wanted to stay at home and raise that first child for a while. And she said that she has really struggled with that, not because of raising children, the part as that is, I have two little ones, so I get it, but because it really challenged her sense of self.

17:06She didn't relate to the phrase stay-at-home mom, even though that's technically what she was right now. And so she didn't know how to think of herself. And then she came to, through this exercise, this statement. I help people become the best versions of themselves, which works equally for the consulting business as it does for raising a child and whatever she does next. People do not spend the time to step back. I think the more experienced you are, the less you spend time thinking about this kind of stuff. And you need to, because you need to understand what your value is, because then you can always own that.

17:46Look, Damon, anyone who knows Damon's story, knows that at the very beginning of FUBU, when they had signed LL Cool J, which is a huge deal, they decided to carve out some of their marketing budget away from the LL Cool J stuff and just towards promoting the founders, just promoting Damon. And the reason for that was because, you know, look, LL Cool J comes, LL Cool J goes. You got to be able to own your own identity and to be the person that people connect with. And if they connect with you, then they'll connect with whatever it is that you have to offer. And I love that story about Damon because that was personal branding long before that term existed, long before, but he understood it.

18:27And I think we all need to understand that no matter what we do, we better be able to define ourselves and make sure that others recognize that definition. Truly agree. So for the person that's watching or listening right now, and they're like, Jason, Mick, that sounds awesome. How do I do that? I'm a lowly, not lowly. I don't mean it that way. I'm a consultant. I'm an insurance agent. Yeah, I own a bakery down the street. You are so spot on that you are a brand now, right? Like, I tell most people that I work with, if you're not your own publicist, you've already lost, right? Because social media makes it so much easier to promote yourself, to be as visible as you can be.

19:11How does someone take that first step when that's not who they have naturally been? Yeah. Well, look, there are a couple ways to think about this. So number one is just who are you and what value are you providing? So if you run a bakery, I mean, I just use that example of the baking mix CEO who said, I bring joy to people with sweet baked goods. You can embody that, too. That's what you're doing. A bakery is not selling sweet baked goods. A bakery is selling joy. And you are bringing joy to your community. You are a place that people come to when they either want joy or they want to bring joy to somebody else.

19:48So once you understand and appreciate that, you can think, how can I make that a little better? How can I be a little more joyful? How can I be proactively making sure that when people want joy, when they think of joy, they come here and that I embody that too? How do you go out of your way to connect with the people who walk in so that they are thinking about you when they're enjoying whatever it is that you created? And now what you're really doing here is you're defining a specific value that you have that's related to your brand. Because if we're going to get into personal branding, and I know that that sounds like just pulling teeth for a lot of people.

20:30Nobody, people don't want to do this. And I understand it. It's exhausting, but it's so valuable as well. If you're not maximizing yourself as an asset, you are leaving so much money on the table. People connect with people, not with brands. They want to connect with you, not just the thing that you sell, you. So the more in which you put yourself out there, the more in which they will love you and the things that you have to offer. And I know that that sounds exhausting. So let me make it really easy and simple. When you put yourself out there, you're not putting yourself out there. That sounds like a lot to put yourself out there.

21:08Maybe you're a more private person. Maybe you think, nobody cares what I have to say. That's fine. That's fine. You're not putting yourself out there. You know what you're doing? You're creating a little character and that character is a really focused version of you. It's the 5 % of you that's most relevant to your consumer. It's like asking, what does my product do? What does my product solve for people? And how can I solve a version of that as well through my own communication and my own personality? So if you're selling sweet baked goods and your problem that you're solving is people need more joy in their lives and I'm going to deliver that joy.

21:48Well, okay. How do you do that too on social media? Is it through suggestions of baking recipes? Is it delightful cakes? Because people just love looking at cakes. Is it process of making something? People will love watching the way that you make your cookies or whatever. They'll love it. They'll love it so much. So you're creating a narrow focused version of you. I think of myself as, I call it the 5 % character. You're creating a 5 % character version of yourself that you can embody so that whenever you show up on social, whenever it's time to make a video, whenever it's time to come on a podcast, you slip into this character and you know who this character is and how they talk and how they think because they are the delivery system for the thing that you're offering.

22:32What do I offer? I offer optimism and I offer a sense that you can do it and I want to simplify complex problems. So Mick, when I come on here, I'm so excited to connect with you, the person, but I am also showing up as Jason Pfeiffer, the character. Jason Pfeiffer, the character who talks in this way and who talks about these things and has this specific set of ideas that he goes back to. Jason Pfeiffer, the guy who you'd have lunch with, you know, we could also talk about this stuff, but we'll talk about random other stuff, too, that has no business being on this podcast. I am creating a focused version of me right now, and you create a focused version of you.

23:13A brand is three things. A brand is simple, repeatable, and scalable. And all you have to do is turn yourself into something that is simple, repeatable, and scalable as well. What is the simple thing that people should understand from you? How do you do that over and over and over again? And then how do you reach the most number of people with it? It's that simple. Amazing. Amazing. And I want to go to the opposite side of this because this is something I also learned from you. because two years ago, I wasn't on social media. I was on LinkedIn, but on LinkedIn, you just throw some posts out there or whatever.

23:47I wasn't on Instagram and I wasn't doing video content. And so I studied you because I heard people say, hey, Mick, just make content, just do whatever. But I started looking at people and I couldn't understand their identity. And so that's where I wanna go. There are people that are putting out content, but I think they're doing it wrong. meaning you need to have some centralized theme or message. It doesn't mean that every video or every post has to be on a centralized theme, but I should be able to, after a couple of posts, know who you are, the individual. And I see so many people getting it wrong because they'll just film anything.

24:28And sometimes that's too distracting. And I will tell you, I know you know this too, because I know you know the algorithm people. That's the worst thing you can actually do for the algorithm is to not have some type of centralized thing because they don't know how to help you. And believe it or not, the algorithm is helping you because it's helping them. Yeah, well, the algorithm wants to know who is your audience so that it can deliver what you're making to that audience. And then it's going to watch and see if that audience connects with it and likes it. And if so, it's going to expand and show it to more audience.

24:58And then if you've really killed it, it'll start to go beyond that audience. So, yeah, you know, people always feel like they're fighting the algorithm. but actually the algorithm wants you to succeed. It's trying to understand what you have to offer and who that audience is. It's almost as if every post that you make has a total addressable audience. And so it's trying to figure out who they are and do they actually like the thing that you made? But you're absolutely right. People go off on random things. I remember talking to a founder once. She had a mental health company and she's like, you know, I know I need to build a personal brand.

25:31And so I should be talking about mental health because that's my company, but I'm also really into crypto. And she started listing off like four other things she's really into. And she's like, so can I just talk about all those? And the answer is no, no, don't do that. Talk about that with your friends, but you're building a business asset out there. And that business asset has to be clearly and easily and quickly understandable. Here's another way of thinking about it. It's not just a business asset. when you start an Instagram feed or decide to start treating your Instagram feed as a business asset or a LinkedIn, whatever, what you're really doing is you're creating a small media company.