In short
Personal brand growth tactics for 2026, arguing that social media is shifting to “interest media” (TikTok/IG find niche audiences via specific keywords). The episode covers: niching by serving one person/solving one problem; fewer platforms with deeper focus; long-form as the “moat” (YouTube/podcasts build trust and time-on-brand); optimizing for influence (next-step actions like DMs, comments, waitlist signups) instead of views; using Dan Priestley’s “3 S’s and 2 F’s” framework (scary/strange/sexy + free value/familiar); daily short-form as baseline; short-form for attention and long-form for trust; repurposing long-form into multiple formats; and retention via hooks (including “authentic” raw talking-to-camera).
Guests
No external guests are interviewed in the provided transcript; hosts repeatedly reference their own brand “Paid to Be You” and “505 podcast,” plus mentions of other guests (Dan Priestley; Seth Godin; Chris Doe; Gary Vaynerchuk; Mike and Cass; Alex Hormozi; Cain) as examples, not as in-episode guests.
Key claims + examples
You don’t need millions of followers—~1,000 actively helped people can support full-time work (Paid to Be You cites ~2,000 subscribers and ~100k IG followers). Entertainment YouTube is a “hamster wheel”; focus on sustainable skill transfer. “Scary” examples include AI fear (“get on AI or be left behind”). “Familiar” examples include borrowing trust by referencing known brands and pairing the show with successful founders.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Shift to Interest Media
0:34 to 1:05
Discussion on the transition from social media to interest-based media and its implications.
“I think the big shift here, and we saw this about a year and a half ago, was we switched away from social media into interest media.”
Narrowing Your Audience
1:05 to 2:01
The importance of identifying and serving a specific audience over trying to reach everyone.
“I also think that if you're for everybody, you're really for nobody.”
Quality Over Quantity in Followers
2:01 to 2:26
Emphasizing the value of a small, engaged audience over large follower counts.
“I think in the past, people were actively trying to get to this game of 100 ,000 subscribers or followers or a million.”
Serving the Right Customer
2:26 to 3:07
Strategies for identifying and targeting customers who can afford your services.
“You can do this full time by doing something like that.”
Choosing the Right Platforms
3:07 to 5:04
Advice on focusing efforts on fewer platforms for deeper engagement and growth.
“for a specific person you can build a really great business around your personal brand and you don't need a ton of user followers.”
Maximizing Long-Form Content
5:04 to 7:48
The benefits of long-form content for building trust and repurposing into short-form.
“All right, let's move on to tip number two, which is fewer platforms, but more depth.”
Workshops as Long-Form Content
7:48 to 10:40
Utilizing workshops as a form of long-form content and how to repurpose it.
“Tip number three on the topic of YouTube.”
The Shift from Views to Influence
10:40 to 12:06
Focusing on influence rather than just viral views in content creation.
“our podcast and our second YouTube channel, like the vlogs, is the workshops that we've been doing.”
Staying Committed to Your Craft
12:06 to 14:02
Encouragement to remain persistent in content creation, regardless of audience size.
“And I think that, I mean, from people that we've spoken to that are entertainment YouTubers, you're like you're a slave to trying to just keep going bigger and bigger and bigger every single time.”
Staying in the Game
14:02 to 16:00
Learn the importance of persistence and patience in building your audience.
“And so you need to give yourself as many at-bats as you can and play the long game to give yourself the opportunity to be discovered.”
Show all 27 chapters
Optimizing for Influence Over Views
16:01 to 20:13
Understand why engagement metrics like comments and saves are more important than views.
“Okay, but bringing it back to optimize for influence and not views.”
The Importance of Next Steps
20:14 to 27:56
Discover the necessity of encouraging your audience to take action after consuming content.
“You need them to take the next step for your content ecosystem to make sense.”
The Value of Giving Away Content
28:00 to 31:10
Learn how sharing valuable content for free can build trust and drive sales.
“I think give it all away for free because it's rare that someone's going to consume like every single piece of your content.”
Pairing with Known Brands
31:10 to 34:13
Discover the benefits of associating with established brands to enhance your credibility.
“they're like, oh, they're part of this little club.”
Daily Short Form Content Strategy
34:13 to 37:40
Understand the importance of daily short form content in growing your personal brand.
“in with the, with the content strategy, but, um, yeah, it's just become part of my daily routine.”
Short Form vs Long Form Content
37:40 to 42:00
Learn the distinct purposes of short and long form content and their roles in building trust.
“Short form is to get noticed and to just, I think, stay relevant every single day in - It's advertising.”
Building Trust Through Long-Form Content
42:00 to 43:00
Learn how long-form content can help build trust with your audience.
“But you really do want to be doing long form to really build the trust because once you build trust, people will buy from you.”
The Importance of Personal Branding
43:00 to 45:00
Understand the necessity of personal branding and visibility in content.
“We do need more B-roll, but it's okay that we're reusing the same photos and same videos.”
Repurposing Content for Maximum Impact
45:00 to 49:10
Discover strategies to effectively repurpose content into various formats.
“So it's not only just taking a long form piece of content and repurposing it and repackaging it through different formats.”
Retention Equals Attention: The Hook Debate
49:10 to 51:40
Explore the concept of retention in content and the effectiveness of hooks.
“I think it was like, I'm going to see what this guy says.”
Choosing Your POV Intentionally
51:40 to 55:20
Learn how to select the right point of view for your content creation.
“You really know what the fuck you're talking about.”
Call to Action: Driving Audience Engagement
55:20 to 56:00
Understand the importance of including calls to action in your posts.
“Now you can show other people how to do it.”
Crafting Effective Call to Actions
56:05 to 56:48
Understand the importance of CTAs in engaging your audience effectively.
“If you DM me a question, I will answer it.”
The Risks of Over-Selling
56:48 to 57:30
Explore how excessive selling can diminish your brand's appeal.
“I really don't love when every person's post is trying to sell you something.”
The Power of Picking a Side
57:30 to 58:41
Discover how taking a stance can strengthen your personal brand.
“Just because we were kind of talking about it before the podcast.”
Authenticity and Life Experiences
58:41 to 1:00:06
Learn the value of authenticity and diverse life experiences in branding.
“And I think show up, show up as yourself, as hard as that is to say.”
Traveling to Enrich Your Brand
1:00:06 to 1:02:00
Understand why traveling and experiencing life can enhance your storytelling.
“stories stories which makes them really interesting yeah stories make you interesting stories make you interesting.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28It's no secret that social media has evolved. So if you're interested in that, check out the top link in the description and let's keep it rolling. All right, let's get started. What is tip number one? I think the big shift here, and we saw this about a year and a half ago, was we switched away from social media into interest media. Absolutely. So that means like on TikTok specifically or Instagram Reels, if you're talking about something very specific, it will find that group. If you're like, hey, I'm really interested in this plan. This is my thing. It will find people who are also interested in plans.
0:57We saw that with the videos that we were putting out. Like if you were saying these specific keywords, those people are finding those videos. Absolutely. I also think that if you're for everybody, you're really for nobody. So we really want to get specific on the person we're trying to attract with our content. We're not really trying to go viral anymore. Do you feel like niching is still super important? Like picking a lane, picking one or two things that you're talking about consistently? I think instead of thinking about what is my niche, I really like how June broke it down of like, what is the message you're trying to spread?
1:33But instead of thinking about like, what is my niche? I really think it's smarter to think about who am I really trying to serve? What is the one specific thing that I can help one specific person solve? And if you can get clear on who you're trying to serve, I think that's a much better way to go about social media. So instead of trying to reach like a massive audience, I think if you can think about who is this specific person I'm trying to serve, I think that's a better way to go about it. I think in the past, people were actively trying to get to this game of 100 ,000 subscribers or followers or a million.
2:09That was kind of like people's goals, I feel like, when you got into this whole thing. Now I think it's shifted to you really don't need tons and tons of people to find your message. You need about a thousand people who you can actively help with one core problem and solve their problem consistently. And you really won't have to, you won't have to work a real job. You can do this full time by doing something like that. I also think that we've seen that specifically with Paid to Be You. It's, you look at our podcast, we have good numbers, but it's not hundreds of thousands. We have 30, I think 2 ,000 subscribers, which is incredible.
2:46I think combined we have about 100 ,000 followers on Instagram and so we do have a great brand but it isn't something where we're getting millions of views or millions of subscribers and we still have a very healthy business and that is just proof that if you help solve a specific problem for a specific person you can build a really great business around your personal brand and you don't need a ton of user followers. Yeah, I would really think about too, who's your customer? Like who is the person that's going to end up buying the thing that you sell? Because the last thing that you guys want to do is spend an absurd amount of time, whether this is a service based offer, whether it's a digital offer, serving someone who just doesn't have the money to pay you for like what you guys are worth.
3:33I remember when I was in college, because I had a service offer when I was in college, I was basically, you know, I was a videographer in the early days. And I remember I met with the University of Oregon because they had this like panel and they were giving grants out. And I was like, oh, my pricing, they're asking for your pricing and like what you're charging for stuff. And basically it was like a business panel in the business school. And then you got to like pitch your idea. And at the time, maybe I was like, I had inflated my numbers too. And I was like, a thousand dollars is what I'm charging.
4:01And I thought that was some big time stuff. And they're like, you're just not going to be able to really build like a profitable business going like this. You're not going to be able to hire people. And I was like, you guys are wrong. You guys don't understand. In my head, I remember just taking this information. And then after, I was like, they just don't get it. They don't understand. And they were right because I was really going after people that could afford it in our college town. But I wasn't going to be able to build something that's thriving. Like Blue Stripe now, we charge a lot of money to these bigger brands.
4:29But we reposition. We're not going after a mom and pop little tire shop. That's not who we want to go after. We want to go after these Fortune 500, Fortune 1000 brands who have money to spend, who have big budgets. So with whatever it is that you're doing, whether it's service, you know, whether you're a digital offer, think about what your customer does and what the result is that you're actually going to be able to get to them. 100%. I also think that tying this whole first tip together, instead of asking yourself, is this going to go viral and is this going to get a bunch of views? Ask yourself, is this going to attract my target customer?
5:04All right, let's move on to tip number two, which is fewer platforms, but more depth. Dude, people holler at you and say to go on every platform. It's, you know what? But they have teams, man. They have teams. It's causing me a lot of anxiety and stress. Our last podcast was about LinkedIn. And you know what? I've realized LinkedIn, not for me. There's people posting on Twitter. Twitter for me is just a fun platform. I'm not really using Twitter. For us, it's Instagram and YouTube. And those are our babies. Those are our babies. We're going every day on Instagram. And for YouTube, we're even doubling down.
5:45We now have the vlog channel, the second channel. And we also want to start a third channel, a clips channel for the YouTube stuff. So instead of focusing on, I have to be every single place. and you're comparing yourself to a Hermosi or a Gary Vee or even somebody like a Matt Gray, like these people are making millions of dollars with their content and they can outsource work and they have a team to be able to create a ton of content for themselves on all sorts of different platforms. So stop comparing yourself to the people who have these massive teams, who their content creation ecosystem is seamless and really easy to repurpose because they have people helping them out.
6:29Focus on one platform, potentially even a second, and go deep on that and really learn that specific platform before you try moving on to another one. I think that's a great tip. And if you can, I think long form is great. I think short form still has a ton of potential. I mean, I noticed that our Instagram reels are still getting really solid numbers. YouTube is a very slow burn so if you're thinking about diving into YouTube I think that it's going to take you a lot longer than you think to grow on there but you also need way less people you don't need hundreds of thousands of people like I would argue that a 10k audience on YouTube a 10k community there is the same as a hundred thousand community on Instagram I think that like if I could ask anyone and they were like you could have 10 ,000 on any platform what would you pick it would be YouTube by far, bar none.
7:21A hundred percent. I think though, YouTube is a tough game. Obviously you have to understand packaging. It takes a lot more time and effort to make a YouTube video than it does, I think, to crank out short form. But if you can, if you can have both long form and short form, that's amazing. And we're going to get into repackaging in a little bit, but But having a long form piece of content absolutely allows you to repackage that content into short form. Yeah. Tip number three on the topic of YouTube. Long form is the moat. So we're going heavier on long form. And we believe that you should too.
8:05Like you just said, YouTube is a platform that can build serious trust. A thing with short form is a lot of times the videos that do well, you kind of remove the nuance and it's a little bit more difficult to go into detail because you're like how can I fit this one idea into a 30 second video with YouTube a proper YouTube video or even a podcast take this podcast for example we're giving you a full social media strategy and principles to follow, it's really difficult to do that in one Instagram video that's 30 seconds, it's damn near impossible. And also, let's say you were to do a series or your whole thing is making content around social media strategy, right?
8:56Let's say we were taking this topic and bringing it to short form. Even if you were to do a series, not every single person is going to be seeing every single video. So all the tips that you're giving, not everyone's going to be seeing all those different tips. And so with YouTube, it allows you to create more trust and build more depth with your audience because you really can go deep on certain topics and you know, they're going to get way more information from one video as opposed to the Instagram videos that you're putting out. And just time on brand is crazy. We had a thousand days of time on brand in the last like month on YouTube, which is crazy from like watch time.
9:33And I mean, that's, that's multiple years. It's over three years of people watching our stuff and hanging out with us in a month span. And I can only imagine what the really big YouTubers are getting on a monthly basis. It's crazy to think about. The other cool part too, about long form, if it is something that you're like, I do want to do this, this is where I'm going to live. You end up getting little snippets that you can end up posting throughout the week. Like if you're talking, especially in your giving advice or you're giving your takes on things, you have these little snippets that you can steal and go put them on TikTok and on Instagram.
10:05And it does make your life a lot easier. Also, when it comes to selling a product online and if you do have a digital offer, if someone spends more time on your brand, like you said, and they really love what you have to say in your long form content, it becomes a much more logical decision to buy something from you versus someone else because they've consumed so much more of your content and you've built up that trust over not only just minutes, but potentially hours, depending on how long form your content is. Another thing that falls into or another format that falls into long form besides our podcast and our second YouTube channel, like the vlogs, is the workshops that we've been doing.
10:52That in a way is long form content. Granted, it's not living on YouTube, but it's another form of us teaching live. And that has been really fun to do as well. Yeah. I also think, I mean, if we wanted to, those workshops, we can take 52 of the ideas or the things that we talk about and slowly start to trickle some of them out. Like, you know what I mean? So it's really interesting to just think about a 30 or 40 minute long video and how many different little snippets that you get out of it. Absolutely. Yeah. So that's another thing is like you could essentially, you could have, or you could, you could host a workshop.
11:31It's an hour or two hour long thing and you can film it. And then like you said, you can use those snippets or gems that you're talking about and repurpose them for a short form content. Without a doubt. Tip number four is to optimize for influence, not views. We slightly brought this up earlier in the podcast, but we're not really trying to go viral anymore. And we're not basing the success of content just strictly off of did this get a lot of views? I think being an entertainment YouTuber is a brutal hamster wheel to be on. Which and we're not even like, I would argue that most of our viewers are not trying to go down the entertainment route.
12:11I would agree. And I think that, I mean, from people that we've spoken to that are entertainment YouTubers, you're like you're a slave to trying to just keep going bigger and bigger and bigger every single time. And I think it's a very unfortunate game to have to play. Like I think being really good at a skill in anything, really good at a skill and being able to transfer that knowledge over via a video platform is so much more sustainable long term than trying to one up yourself every single time. It's just, it's a never ending game of you can't stop. You're a lot of the time to those entertainment YouTubers, right?
12:55Most of them rely on merch. A lot of them aren't divvying into other businesses. So when the views dip, so does your monthly income. The brand deals get lower because most of them rely on brand deals. Their merch sales go down. It's a tough game to play. And I think that if I was you guys, then I mean, we both at one time wanted to be entertainment YouTubers way back in the day. And now, you know, we're kind of fulfilling that dream with the vlog channel. But it's a totally different setup, though. We don't need hundreds of thousands of people to find us on there. If that channel gets to 10K in the next year, I will be over the moon ecstatic.
13:34And that's all you needed to get to. Me and Brayden keep talking about that. We are the internet's... What? To find the words. The biggest... Best kept secret. Best kept secret. It's all right. The words are hard. Dude, words are hard. But I'll tell you what. We are the internet's best kept secret right now. And the thing... You know what? Dude, it's so funny. Okay. so this kind of relates to when i was trying to be a dj okay granted never panned out but uh we would talk about how we weren't unsuccessful or we weren't a flop we just hadn't been discovered yet been discovered yet granted music a little hard hard dude i'm not a musician but i say that to say, just because your moment hasn't happened yet or you haven't built up the audience of the size that you want doesn't mean you can't and doesn't mean what you're talking about and what you're making content about isn't of value.
14:33People just haven't discovered you yet. And so you need to give yourself as many at-bats as you can and play the long game to give yourself the opportunity to be discovered. Yeah, go hit the cages. Go hit the batting cages. Dude, 100%. Stay in the cage. Stay in the game. Stay in the game. Do whatever you can to stay in the game. If you've got to take a full-time job, if you've got to take a part-time job, do whatever you can. We were talking to our buddy Cain about this the other day, and he was just saying it's just inevitable. It's inevitable if you stay in the game. But if you quit and you stop, you're done.
15:06You lost the race. It's like you were on, you know the things at the airport? What's that thing? That little thing? Words are hard, huh? Words can be a little hard. but what's it called do you know what it's called i don't even know what the little the little conveyor belt thing what's that thing called that you get on it like push you forward when we're walking through the airport there's that thing that you hop on and it's like oh the it's not an escalator no it's not an escalator what's it called it's like a conveyor belt what is it just like a moving it's like the moving sidewalk thing yeah what is it called i don't know what it's called we're gonna call it the conveyor belt you gotta just stay on the conveyor belt, man.
15:40You can't get off. You can't get off where the walkers are at. You got to stay on the tracks and keep going. See, I don't know if that's the best analogy because everyone's still going in the right direction. The people in the conveyor belt are just moving a little faster. I'm moving quicker. I'm in the game, dude. Dude, I don't know. That might have been a swing and a miss from Thicc. Might have been a swing and a miss. But hey, we're podcast. We're having a good time. Yeah, we're having a good time, dude. It's all good. But you guys get what I'm saying. You got to stay in the game. Stay in the game.
16:05Okay, but bringing it back to optimize for influence and not views. Land the plane for me. Instead of thinking about or basing your success off of how many views did this get, base the success off of a piece of content or the content that you're putting out is if someone is willing to take the next step. So did they follow you from this piece of content? Did they resonate enough with the piece of content that you put out to send you a DM? Did they comment a word because they wanted to take that next step with you where you provided enough value in your Instagram video and you have your many chats set up with your lead gen product and everything's aligned and someone's like, you know what?
16:47I want that lead gen product. I'm gonna comment the word and we're gonna send them off the lead gen product. Did they sign up for your wait list, right? Did you guys take the next step, hit that top link and sign up for the wait list for paid to be you. And so if you can think about, if you can think about your KPI as, did they take the next step that I wanted them to in my funnel or in my, you know, content strategy, did they take the next step? Because that's a much better KPI than did this get a lot of views? I also noticed something interesting. I had a post that did really well the other day in my car.
17:27I was just talking to the camera. And I think that back in the day, like when we were younger, we used to look at the likes as kind of the end all be all for like how a post did. Right. That was before it was it was only likes and comments. You had two things that you were able to do on a post. And now you have like you have comment, you have share, you have save. If someone goes and saves a piece of content or shares it, I know myself, I do this personally. I don't like their post. I just save it. I'm not going to hit three different things on their post. I'm just going to hit the save button or I'm going to share it to a friend.
18:00I'm not going to like go and like. So I wouldn't be so concerned with like, is this getting a lot of likes? I would look at the sentiment in the comments. I would look at if someone's just leaving you a fire emoji, it doesn't really mean a whole lot. If someone's like, wow, this really impacted me or I thought about it in this certain way. Like, look at the character count in your comment section. Look at how many people are sharing it, because if they're sharing it, that means they're having a conversation about it in the DM. So you're not really like getting to see that data. And those are other comments on a piece that you're putting out.
18:28Well, I was going to say, I think saves are good for the algorithm and engagement. And I think Instagram does value if someone saves a post versus not. But I think we all live in a world where we save and we never act on those things that we save. I would argue most people have hundreds of pieces of content, whether they're organized or not. And in their head, they're thinking, I'm going to get to those saved posts. I have hundreds of saved recipes on TikTok. I think I've made two. I have hundreds of places in LA to go take photos or a new coffee shop to go hit or places that I want to travel or content ideas, whatever.
19:20There's so many saved posts and I'm guilty of being like, I'm going to get to that later, but you never do. And so I think saves are important for like the algorithm and for like insights. But I think I would argue most people save shit and they never go look back at it. I'd be interested to hear from you guys because I look at my saves honestly every day. Really? Yeah. I go back like very frequently because I have it very curated. I have it like - What kind of stuff are you saving? Cool content. I have ads that I save from people. If I get hit with ads and I think they're interesting or I think there's something that I could take from it, I'll save the ads.
19:55I have really, it's just those two. Those are the two that I focus on like the most or if there's like I have songs that I'll save. So I have like a video that I'll save and then I'll just it's only for their song and I want to like take their song for something. But I'm curious if you guys do that and like what you use them for or if you never go back and use them. Yeah. I also think that the big message here is that if somebody doesn't take the next step, even if you are providing value, your content is just kind of entertainment. You need them to take the next step for your content ecosystem to make sense.
20:25Without a doubt, because views, who cares? Who cares if it's just getting views, if it's just getting eyeballs, if nothing is happening from it? Because I would argue that people listening to this show, you have something that you want to sell eventually. You have a business, right? You have some sort of business. You're trying to drive traffic to a brand, whether it's physical, you have a service that you're selling, You have a digital offer that you're selling. There's no point in you just being famous unless that's your thing. Well, let's cut the bullshit. That's why we're trying to build personal brands.
21:01100%. That's the whole thing. Either you're building a... Okay. I would say close to 100 % of the people listening to this show are fucking entrepreneurs in some way or another. Whether you're building a personal brand or you're building a physical regular brand. And so the whole thing of social media, the whole purpose of what we're trying to do is you're trying to get eyeballs for someone to take the next step. You're trying to generate traffic to your business. And so if you're just getting views, but you're not optimizing your content for someone to take the next step, it's fucking pointless.
21:37We don't care about being famous and having a shitload of followers and getting a bunch of views. They're vanity metrics, sure, it's fucking cool. and more of that if your back end is set up correctly means probably more dollars in your pocket but like you said if you're not optimizing for someone to take the next step and you're just getting a bunch of views it does not matter for your business no and i let yeah like you're so right let's just be let's be real for a second be real let's be let's be real for a second if if someone out there is like oh yeah dude this thing got a hundred thousand views whoop-dee-doo Who cares?
22:16Who cares unless you have something that you're pushing? Number five is actually from our good buddy, Dan Priestley. Shout out to Dan. We need to go out to London ASAP and run back pod number two. But this is a framework that he came up with. Okay, so it's the three S's and two F's. We got scary, strange, sexy, free value, and familiar. I think we should start off with number one, which is scary. Ooh, don't get over. I didn't know we were in October. This is a common thing that we see on YouTube now. We've used this technique. It's not a new technique, but it's great. And it actually works really well for people to take action because there's this fear of missing out.
22:52This fear of I don't know this information, what could happen to my business or what could happen if I don't actually take this step? Yeah. If I don't take action, what am I going to miss out on or what is going to happen? What is going to happen if I don't take the next step, like you said? And so you can use this as a strategy in your content. You can use fear as a tactic. And I know it kind of sounds almost like dark artsy in a way, but like you said, once you see it, it works really well and you won't be able to unsee it. But yeah, if you can, if you can make people feel like they need to take action now, and if they don't take action now, something bad's going to happen or they're going to be, you know, left behind.
23:33For example, you've seen the, you know, AI is coming, like you need to get on AI. And if you don't get on AI, you're just going to be left behind. Oh my God, I'm so scared. Like I got to figure out AI. So if you can think about that with your content, you'll see a lot of success. Number two, we got strange. Oh, you got to take a, you got to take a contrarian approach and say something slightly different than what most people are saying. Who did this on our podcast? Seth Godin. Seth Godin said that authenticity was bullshit. And I remember when we were sitting there and we had listened to a lot of interviews from him.
24:07where like you challenged him a little bit on it. You're like, go a little bit deeper into this. And when we asked Chris Doe about it, Chris was like, Seth is taking a belief that we all know that that's not exactly how he feels. Yes. Like authenticity, is it a bad thing? Yeah. Let's be for real for a second. Yeah, I think with information being a commodity, you can't just say, you can't just provide quote unquote value by providing information. And so you need to bring in, your own lived experiences, but you also need to say it in a way that's different. And so how can you create curiosity or say something in a different way that maybe you're sharing the same information, but you're saying it in a way that hasn't been said before, or it hasn't been said how you're going to say it because you have to stand out.
25:00And if you are saying the same information and delivering it in the same exact way, and you're not having some sort of contrarian approach, you're just going to blend in with everybody else. That's not what we want. We want you guys to stand out. Sexy, this has been a thing since the dawn of time. This is the outcome. This is like the end of the rainbow. What's going to happen, right? Is that why you're wearing a silk button-down shirt? It's a pretty sexy shirt, dude. Thank you, dude. I really appreciate that. I see what you're doing. I really appreciate that. I wore it specifically for this. Yeah, man.
25:33For this exact thing. dude when you have a red Porsche you see that shit in all those thumbnails these people they're putting the the dream scenario they got the house they got the car they got the watch it's what people want people want people think that they want that in the very beginning of the game and this goes back to hide the broccoli in the cake sell the sexy dream outcome if they take the next step to work with you. You know, you're not talking about the process that you're going to take them through to get the outcome. You're selling the dream. Like you said, you're selling the red Ferrari.
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26:09You're selling, you know, the villa in Monaco. You're selling the blue water, the travel, the freedom. You notice too, with like, for example, fitness, all the fitness plans. If you start talking to your phone tonight and you say fitness, fitness, fitness, fitness, three times, you start getting hit with some ads. They're not going to tell you that you need to be in a caloric deficit to lose weight. Yes. They're not going to tell you that you need to work out a certain number of times a week. They're going to sell you the six pack. They're going to sell you looking really good at your wedding.
26:37That's what they're going to sell you, you know? And so it's really interesting now when you start to notice these levers and how they make you feel, you will never look at advertising or you'll never look at videos the same way when you get hit with them. So stay sexy, my friend. Stay sexy, Rox. Free value, a gift. The podcast is a gift. I also think that if, yeah. We go all around the world. We pay thousands and thousands of dollars to go make the show happen. Tens of thousands of dollars to make the show happen. And you guys know that. I'm very transparent with you about how much it costs us to go on these trips and stuff.
27:09You're aware of the financial investment that we put into the show. And we appreciate the reciprocation from you guys commenting and helping us grow this thing and sharing it to a friend. It means a ton. But it's a dual relationship here. We're trying to go get these best guests in the world and you guys will DM us and tell us like what you want to hear. And we ask that stuff. So we're trying to extract great information from these guests and give you information that we all would have to pay for. You, me, Kostas, like we'd all have to pay for these lessons from these guests. Tens of thousands of dollars.
27:41I think a big misconception that people have when it comes to content versus creating a course or a mastermind or a workshop or a cohort, whatever, it's what do I teach for free or what do I give away for free and what do I keep for my paid shit? You think you give it all away? I think give it all away for free because it's rare that someone's going to consume like every single piece of your content. And if they do consume every single piece of content, they're going to feel so indebted to you that they're going to want to work with you versus anybody else. And people pay for proximity and people pay to learn specifically from you.
28:29And so if you have a legitimate skill set and you can help someone get from point A to point B or have an actual transformation, they're going to pay to learn from you. even if you've given away all of your sauce or everything that you teach if you've given it all away for free in multiple different pieces of content over years of posting content they're still going to pay to work with you and take your course or take your cohort or take your mastermind because they want to interact with you and they want to be able to ask questions that you are specifically going to answer about how to help them specifically.
29:13I saw that Gary and Mike and Cass, who we've had Mike and Gary on the show, they did a private dinner in New York. And if you bought like a certain amount of their book, you got to go to this private dinner. Gary gives away everything. Mike gives away everything. But the reason why, like you're saying, why you would buy a certain amount of books to be able to go to this dinner is because it's proximity and you want to be able to ask your very specific question. You're not going to get those ass via DM. They're super busy. There's millions of people that are following Gary. He's not going to probably see your DM.
29:45But if it's a reason why you would pay, even though he gives away all of his, all of the information, right? And same with Alex, people are paying to go to their scaling workshop in Las Vegas because they want their specific problem answered. And I would argue that Alex has given away so much value for free that if someone could watch all of Alex Hermosi's content and apply everything that he teaches. And they could probably get from 1 million to 5 million if they just watch every single piece of content that Alex teaches and puts it into their business. If information was all people needed, everyone would be a millionaire and have a six pack.
30:26You like that quote. I do like that quote because it's so true. People pay for proximity and implementation. Like they want to be able to ask the expert the specific question to be able to apply it to themselves. And they just want to be around you. Like some people will just literally buy your stuff to just straight up support you. So yeah, dude, just give away as much free value as you can and have it be that you give away so much free value that when you do go and ask for someone to pull out their credit card and pay you something, it's like a no brainer. They're like, of course I'm going to pay them.
31:01The last one is familiar. So this is pairing yourself with known brands. It's the reason why if we see people that are paying$140 for that silly little Amy Leon door hat, they're like, oh, they're part of this little club. You know what I mean? Or for example, for this podcast, we have paired ourselves with very successful entrepreneurs and founders and people who have grown extremely big personal brands. And so through pairing ourselves with those certain individuals, the show, the 505 podcast is seen in a certain light because we are paired with certain individuals. Yeah. It's if we, if we had different people on that didn't give you guys value and you listened to her like, this was mid, I didn't get anything from this.
31:52You would think of the show differently. Or if the show was just us riffing and giving away a ton of value, even if the value, okay, we've done, this is episode 194. If every single episode we did was just me and you, and we were still giving away all the information that all of the guests have come on and given away, but it was just us, it would be a very valuable show, but I don't think it would be seen in the light of, okay, Costas and Brayden know what they're talking about they're giving away value but they're also paired with these very uh successful individuals you know how much harder it would be for us to get on people by ourselves if it was just us yeah it'd be very difficult well if it's just us we wouldn't be getting on other people but i'm saying if we made the shift sure sure we want to now get guests yes be a lot more difficult because chances are they just haven't they haven't heard you you know chances are they don't know who you are even we've talked about this before but there's so many people out there with millions of followers that you don't even know the names to 50 million.
32:59I'll see a singer. And I'm like, I've never heard of this person before. I've never seen them in my entire life. And they're huge. They have fans all over the world. Never seen them before. Yeah. I also think that let's say you're, uh, you have a piece of value that you want to provide and you want to make a piece of content about it. If you use an example from like a known brand or company and use that as an example. You can borrow trust from that brand or company and bring it into your own content. So just by simply bringing it up in your content, you're pairing yourself with that brand and borrowing trust from them.
33:36Without a doubt. Yeah. All right. Number seven is daily short form is the baseline. How has it felt doing every day? Has it been a pain in the ass? It has been a little bit of a pain in the ass. But to be honest, like now that I'm doing it, I'm just like, oh, It's just part of my daily routine. We've been so busy with the podcast and pay to be you and a bunch of other stuff that brand partnerships, it's been very difficult to honestly, like really sit down and, um, like bulk shoot and batch shoot content. Once we come back from this Panama trip, though, I am sitting down, I'm really getting dialed in with the, with the content strategy, but, um, yeah, it's just become part of my daily routine.
34:19And look, I know that this tip is daily short form is now the baseline. And I am in the camp of I'm posting daily. The more you post, the more eyeballs you can get on your stuff. Every post that you put out is a potential lottery ticket for success. And the more you post, the better your odds get from this lottery game. However, I empathize with people who struggle to post every single day because I struggled to post every single day for a very long time, especially if you're balancing, you know, freelance clients or a full-time job. Like it is very, it can be a lot of work. However, if you want to win, that's just kind of how the cookie crumbles.
35:11Just the price of rice. It is just kind of the price of rice. You can either complain and say, going every day on social is just like too much work. You know, it's just, I'm balancing all these other things. Or you can say, you know what? I do really want 2026 to be the year that I really grow my personal brand and I see success and what is going to have to happen for me to see the success that I want. And it's probably at the very baseline going every single day on short form. And that's just like what it has to be. And sometimes life isn't fair and it takes a lot of work and you got to grind.
35:55That's just what it is. Make, I think make a difference though in your low effort and your high efforts. Totally. Like you, there's no way that you're going to be able to put up a masterpiece every day. I also think you get much more grace going every day. Yes. Like I wouldn't expect a creator that's doing something every day or a business owner that's doing something every day for every piece to be like Mozart's you know creme de la creme thing it's just not possible yeah you don't have enough there's not enough creative juice to go every single day at the highest possible caliber unless you start hiring out other people to help you out it's just not possible I completely agree with all of that I also think that in my pursuit of going every single day I've had to let go of this post needs to be perfect like it's just not possible unless the only thing you're doing in your day is creating a piece of amazing content.
36:47Also, perfect today is not going to be what you think perfect is in six months, a year, two years from now. As you get further and further into this content game, your taste improves. And also, if I was to make a perfect video today, quote unquote perfect, there could be better motion graphics. I'm not doing motion graphics. The B-roll could be better. The editing could be crazier. The way I deliver the message could be better. And so if you get caught up in, I can't go every day because it needs to be perfect, well, perfect doesn't fucking exist. So stop letting perfect get in the way of you posting a piece of content.
37:28Just try to make it like 70 % there and just go because you're gonna learn a lot more from posting consistently than trying to post sparse but make every piece of content so amazing. Number eight, short form versus long form. Know what each is for. Absolutely. What is the short form for? Short form is to get noticed and to just, I think, stay relevant every single day in - It's advertising. Yes. That is advertising. You know, it's funny. I was thinking about this the other day because we've been hit up quite a bit for NBA All-Star. We have like three or four jobs going on at once over the weekend, which is wild.
38:04but it's I think because I got hit up right when I was starting to really ramp up the posting because we started in like January going like every day right I think that you become top of people's mind right now a friend hit me up for a job in San Francisco and I didn't know anyone really in SF to like send to them and I'm like that's kind of crazy like it's advertising if someone was posting consistently every day with their video work and they're like SF based videographer, SFA's video agency, I would know who to call, right? I'd have someone off the top of my head who to call. So by not showing up consistently, you are fleeting in the minds of other people who would hire you for certain things, right?
38:43I think about people around us, if I need certain things done, I know exactly who I'm going to call because they're top of my mind. That's exactly who I need to give a ring to. So by not showing up, you were literally under a rock, pun intended. Come on, dude. I think that you can build trust with short form. You can build a lot more trust with long form. And so if you can think about your content strategy is really to just kind of like top of funnel, get a lot of eyes and attention on you. It's a reminder. It's a reminder every single day. Like you said, you're top of mind for these people. And then you have your YouTube, your long form, whether it's a podcast, YouTube channel, vlog, whatever it may be, use the long form to really build trust.
39:28And then trust precedes the transaction. And so you need trust for someone to actually pull out their credit card and buy from you. So use long form to build that trust. I think you can still build trust on long form. I think it just takes a shitload more videos because like we said earlier, you're kind of taking out a lot of the nuance when you are making short form content. Or you need to just be exceptional. Like I think about the people that I've hired, a lot of the creators that I hire, they don't do YouTube at all. They're just exceptional. Yeah. Their work speaks for themselves. Like I can go click on their thing and I'm like, this is, this is amazing.
40:06I don't need them to make a 20 minute long YouTube video. So if you are like a service based provider and let's say, I'll give you an example. Let's say you're like an interior home decorator. I don't need to see your YouTube video. It would help. It would definitely be nice and nice to have. But if I went to your Instagram and you took this blank room and then turn it into this beautiful, you know, beautiful living room or this beautiful bedroom. Yeah. And it's a 15 second video. Your work speaks for itself. And I would be willing to transact and pull out my card. You know, I will say though, okay, let's say the average Instagram reel is 30 seconds, right?
40:42Yeah, I'd say like probably 15 to 30, but yeah, somewhere around there. Let's just say it's 30 seconds. Okay. Over the course, if you go every single day, posting over the course of the month. Should we do some math? the minutes, it's going to be 30 times 30 minutes, 900 seconds. No, but divided by 60 is 15 minutes. Yeah. Dude, you're good at math. Well, the way I thought about it is that that's, that's fit. Wow. That's one YouTube video. Well, that's, that's what I'm saying. Let's say you were to go every single day with a banger 32nd piece of content. That's 15 minutes time on brand. Even if your YouTube video, let's say is eight minutes or 10 minutes.
41:20Now you have, let's just take 10 minutes because I feel like that's the average math easy. So, or even if you do eight over the course, over the course of four videos, that's 32, right? 32. Yeah. Okay. So now you're just by putting out a, you know, instead of going every single day on Instagram, like, cause we do want to go every single day, you're posting once a week, but your time on brand is double on long form than it is on short form. And you're able to give way more in depth on certain topics that you're talking about. So that's where the trust builds. And it's just way more time on brand.
41:57So understand, like you said, short form is just to stay top of mind and get attention. But you really do want to be doing long form to really build the trust because once you build trust, people will buy from you. And show that personality. Oh yeah. Get your face in there. You know, it's funny because I came from a, from a niche earlier on where I was a video person, right? I was a videographer. I was doing work for people. I think one thing that really set me apart in those earlier days is my face was everywhere on my page. You could see me on the page and a lot of big ass big head, dude. When they, when I go to other creators pages, a lot of time you have no idea what they look like.
42:34Yes. You have no idea what they look like. It just work. So they're even their profile photos some artsy shit. You can't even tell what it is that they do. I think now more than ever, it's so, so important to put a face to the name. Totally. So updated cover photo, or at least if I land on your page, I better be able to know and distinguish your face. So I know what's going on and who I'm talking to. You know, I don't want to, I don't want to DM a ghost. Want to know who I'm talking to. Yeah, absolutely. Number nine, learn the art of repurposing. Dude, do we need more B-roll or what? We do need more B-roll, but it's okay that we're reusing the same photos and same videos.
43:11Now, I want to talk to you guys about repurposing in a few different ways. Okay. So there's the repurposing of a long-form piece of content. Okay. And, you know, then you find the certain moments, right? So from this podcast, I'll give you an example of repurposing in two different ways. So we could take this podcast and we could repurpose it into short form clips. We could do carousel posts where we put text of what we're saying or the tips that we're giving over the course of a carousel post with photos. We could do, you know, talking head style video where you talk, you kind of maybe give a few of these tips or one of these tips and you do a talking head style video.
44:02and you're sharing the same message just in a different way, you can turn the podcast into an email newsletter. If you're on LinkedIn or Twitter, you can do written stuff. So that's one way of taking like the main idea and repurposing it into a bunch of different types of content, which I think is very important for your content strategy. And you're just squeezing as much juice as you can out of one long form piece of content. So that's one level of repurposing. Another level of repurposing is taking the same message or idea and repackaging it in a different way, meaning you bring in a new lived experience to tie into the same message.
44:42Let's say you say something in a piece of content. You don't need to say something completely new in a new piece of content. You can just say the same thing, but in a different way. And the easiest way to do that is just to take a different lived experience that you have or a different example and bring that into the content, switch up the way you wrote the script for the piece of content. So it's not only just taking a long form piece of content and repurposing it and repackaging it through different formats. It's also taking the same message that you're spreading or that you're sharing and saying it in a different way.
45:18The next one is retention equals attention. So it's super important to have some sort of hook, but I have an interesting debate for us. Okay. So there's different types of hooks, right? We have like a visual hook. If you had a beautiful place where you film, it looks super interesting or it's unique to you, right? We have a text hook, which would be like me putting a little like headline at the top of my video. I did this the other day. I was like the biggest shift in social in 2026. You're like, well, I want to hear what the heck the biggest social, I want to hear what the heck he has to say about this.
45:46I'm going to stay and hear the payoff. We We have text hook, we have a visual hook, and then we have an audio hook. So what you're saying, right? Or maybe it was like a crazy song that was really cool and I'm interested in it. I want to hang out. But you posted a video the other day. It was one of your most viewed pieces, most liked pieces. And I would argue that it had zero hook. And someone commented on it something funny. And they're like, I've been skipping your reels, but I listened to this one. Because it felt very authentic. It felt like there was no hook. So I'm curious where that is going to go.
46:15And I keep getting hit with videos. that are just raw off the cuff in the car. I would argue I did kind of have a hook. What was it? So visually, I don't necessarily think there's anything unique about it. It's a mid-hotel room. Mid-hotel room. Okay. Text-wise, it's just subtitles. But the way I started the video was I said, to start the year, I signed a contract with myself. To start the year. your first four words. I don't think you need to count the number of words you're saying. Go seconds. Your first two seconds. I would say that drives a curiosity thing of like what is this contract he signed with himself?
47:03But I don't even think I would have got to the word contract. I don't even think I would have got to the word contract. But I think you're wrong because it clearly had good retention. That's so interesting. Yeah. I still just don't think it was a hook though. Like, I don't think that's a traditional hook necessarily. Okay. To start the year I wrote a contract to myself is not something that— But let me— It's not a hook at all. I think I could have started by saying, I'm not feeling good, and I'm in this hotel room, and we're in New York, and I didn't want to post a piece of content, but I'm—whatever.
47:38that is essentially saying the same thing but i said i was like what can i say that might spark some curiosity i wrote a i wrote a contract with myself or i signed a contract with myself at the beginning of the year not a physical contract but one in my head that i would post every single day. I think that even though it may not be like a traditional hook, I still think you are maybe intrigued enough to be like, what is this? What is this contract that he's about to say? Potentially. I don't know. I kind of disagree. Okay. But I don't know why. I think why it did well, in my personal opinion, is because it was there was no crazy there was nothing crazy going on it was just real and you were talking to the camera and I feel like in the era of swipe swipe swipe swipe it sticks out because it's not like this is your top three tips to do this and I am swiping by all those fucking videos now I can't stand them I feel like the value game is very interesting on Instagram and TikTok right now I feel like I'm not sticking for those videos at all.
48:58They're almost trying to like bait me in a way. And I feel like it was just you being yourself, I would argue that made people stick. Like, I don't think it was, I don't think it was like any sort of hook or curiosity loop. I think it was like, I'm going to see what this guy says. Like, let me just hear what he says. It didn't feel like it's trying to be something that it's not. It's just like you talking to the camera. I'm like, it's refreshing to almost see a piece like that comparatively to the other 50 things that I will get fed, you know? And that's why I also think the thing in my car did well.
49:30Cause it's like, it's, it's just in a car and it's, it's not, you're talking to the mic on a, on a little thing in my headphones. There's no crazy production value going on. It's just so stripped down. There's nothing that's, there's no like barrier between it. It's like you're on FaceTime with a friend almost. Yeah. But I still think that you're, I did have, I did have a text hook. I did have a text hook like on the screen. It was like a big shift in content in 2026 and you're like, well, what is the big shift? How did you open up that video? I said that I said, I'm noticing something. Okay, cool.
49:58That's opening up a curiosity. What are you noticing? No, but I agree, but it's stripped down. I think I, I, I still think going back to your video, I don't think there was a hook at all. And like, we can agree to disagree. You don't, you think that there was a hook there because I said that line somewhat intentionally. I think I could have easily said, me and Brayden are in New York right now. Yeah, no one cares. No one cares. And I'm feeling sick and it's snowing outside. Like I could have said the same exact thing. But who's to know because I didn't A-B test. Yeah, I know. That's it. But I do.
50:36I did. I go back to that kid's comment though. And I use that as like data of there's probably 500 people who also thought the same thing as him. But he commented, so now we have a touchpoint of that was why he watched. On the topic, though, of this specific tip of retention equals attention, this is really interesting, and this is a funny way to put it, but you kind of got to blue ball your audience. After your hook, you can't give the payoff right away. You have to be like, I'm curious because of this hook, and then you kind of set some, like you lay the foundation a little bit, but you don't give the payoff.
51:20And like the more you can delay the gratification of getting the sauce from the actual video, the more your retention goes up. A lot of times you'll, let's say you're making a video that is 30 seconds long. If you do the hook and then the payoff right away, that's within maybe six or seven seconds. So now your retention is maybe 25 % of the whole video. if you can give the payoff and storytell enough to where someone's going to want to stay towards the second half of the video you're giving yourself a better chance of having someone watch more of your video which means more retention which means Instagram is going to see that people are watching your video for longer and okay people are liking this so it's going to get shared a little bit more.
52:08I want to do a test this week and I'm curious if it if it's almost just like a one off the cuff yap session like you don't there you purposely don't do any sort of like trick to get them to stay i wonder i wonder what it does i'm really curious to see we'll report back to you guys next week i will say the stronger the message that you share and if you can communicate it extremely well the less you need the cuts and the fancy editing and the music and stuff like that the people who crush it who don't have yeah no captions no nothing it looks like shit they're just really good at communicating a message and the message is super valuable you're right and they also they have a certain like aura to the way that they speak they're not like so today it's with a conviction totally this is what you this is what i'm noticing another hook next up choose your pov intentionally what does that mean okay so our good buddy caleb ralston said something that stuck with me on the podcast he said years ago don't yeah year about seven or eight months ago he said don't pose as an authority if you aren't one so you're either taking the pov that you are the expert you are the authority figure.
53:34You really know what the fuck you're talking about. You have years of experience and years of game and knowledge to give away to your audience. So you're either taking the POV of the expert or you're kind of just starting out and you're going to take the journey POV. You can build authority still with the journey POV because you build authority simply by attempting to do the thing and you share your learnings. So I tried posting on social media for 30 days in a row or whatever. There's authority built in there because you put in the work of posting every single day and you're sharing your findings.
54:17If you are not an authority figure, if you do not have genuine credibility to share that you know what you're talking about, do not fake pose as a fake guru. it is totally okay to take the journey POV instead of the authority POV and be honest about that. Don't take the position of I'm an authority if you aren't one. You can be really successful with a journey POV. Totally. I really love the videos of I'm doing this or I'm committing to 30 days in the gym or I did this thing for a year straight. I love watching those videos. Matt D 'Avello is really good at this. His body and his life is an experiment on YouTube, right?
55:00Those videos are super interesting. But by consuming and doing and practicing a lot of these things, or if you, let's say, you used yourself as the experiment, and you're like, oh, I ran Facebook ads for a year straight, and I made a million dollars. I'd argue now, you know what the heck you're doing. You tested on yourself. You got an outcome. Now you can show other people how to do it. You can share your findings also along the way. Oh, today we tested with$5 a day and this was our findings. This is what we found out. I would much rather someone do that than pose as an expert. And I think you'll have way more success.
55:36Specifically calling out the younger rocks. I think that it's really easy to think that you have to come across as you are the best and you are perfect at it. And people will respect you so much more by just being honest. Absolutely. And last but not least, every post needs some sort of call to action. And this isn't to sell every time, nor should it ever be every single time. But you'll notice at the end of all my videos, I say, as always, DM me on IG with any questions, hit that follow button for more. Peace. That's intentional. I want people to start a conversation. I want to help people. If you DM me a question, I will answer it.
56:11People will see that. And they always are like, oh, is this really you or is this a bot? It's me. takes a lot of time, but I really enjoy it. And I think that I get to impact people from the decade plus that I've been in this game, doing this stuff online. I think you could even have a soft CTA of like, oh, you should try this out. Yeah, 100%. So call to action. What is the action you want them to take? Do you want them to follow you? Do you want them to comment? Do you want them to try this out in their own life? Do you want them to click the link in your bio, something, have some sort of CTA.
56:43If there is no CTA, there's no next step or there's no direction for your audience to take. I really don't love when every person's post is trying to sell you something. And I think that we as the audience can feel that. If every single post on short form is like, buy this thing, buy this thing, buy this thing, you notice that their affinity, like what people feel about them, it drops significantly because you're asking every single time. It's annoying to be asked every single time. It's not annoying to give you a gift. So if you have something awesome that you built for people and it's totally free, it's not annoying to be like, hey, check out my free thing.
57:19Check this out. Go try it. Go give it a go. Give me some feedback on it. That's totally okay. But if you're trying to sell every single time, I think it does lose like stock in your brand. Absolutely. I have one bonus tip. Oh, I love a bonus. Just because we were kind of talking about it before the podcast. And you've heard us talk about this on the podcast before, but you got to pick an enemy. You got to be for and against something because if you're for everybody, you don't stand for anything. And so I know we don't like to piss people off, but like you have to be against something. You have to draw a line in the sand.
57:57The people who build the strongest personal brands are against something i'll bring up the example of paul saladino he is against kale and vegetables which is fucking wild he pisses a lot of people off okay people who eat vegetables or nutritionists who you know say to eat vegetables are like this guy's full of shit he has a fucking cult-like following and he's like he's taken the he's taken the pov or he's chosen, he has chosen the enemy of vegetables and kales and he is against that. And so you're going to piss a lot of people off, but you're also going to have people that ride for you super hard.
58:36So if you can pick an enemy and be against something, you'll see a lot of success. Without a doubt. And I think show up, show up as yourself, as hard as that is to say. Be authentic. You got to, I like die on that hill that that's what is your X factor. Like your lived experiences are your X factor. So right now, if you're like, well, I'm just inside all day. I have nothing to talk about. Go outside, go touch some grass, go skin your knees, go travel, do whatever you can. You can travel with little money because I did it in college. I know you can do it. Like you could work a crappy job that you're not loving right now and figure out a way to go out and get experiences.
59:12Did you ever, since studying abroad, have you ripped a Europe trip with friends or anything like that no i i didn't i haven't gone back to europe i've gone to asia multiple times that's fair yeah i've gone to asia quite i i mean i lived in asia for like two and a half months yeah i loved asia asia is really cool because you you have uh they they love tourism yeah out there right they really are very welcoming and accommodating and specifically the balinese people best people in the world kindest people like i loved that culture i felt like i really got a sense of where we were living and you know all the streets at that point you don't even need a map and i feel like we made a lot of really cool friends over there the reason i bring it up is because i'm reading green lights by matthew mcconaughey and this motherfucker has so many stories stories which makes them really interesting yeah stories make you interesting stories make you interesting.
1:00:13And so I think I've shared this on the podcast, but I'm not sure if I have. Stories and hobbies, dude. Yeah. My senior year of college, I took a business of acting class and one of the assignments was to get in contact with a working actor. They don't need, they didn't have to be like super successful. Obviously the more successful, the better, but get in contact with a working actor and ask them five questions or something like that. Anyways, my friend Ray's dad was a working actor. It wasn't like super famous, but he had been working as an actor on TV shows and movies for, I want to say like 40 years.
1:00:48So I got in contact with him and the piece of advice that he gave me that stuck out to me was he said, if you want to be an actor before pursuing acting, like once you graduate, go travel and go experience life. Because if you can, the more life you can experience, the more lived experience you'll have to be able to pull from when you are trying to act as different characters. And it's the same for content and it's the same for building a brand. Like if you can go out and experience life and have experiences to pull from and being able to relate to different people or you see the world and it doesn't have to be that you have to go on a$25 ,000 vacation to Europe in the summer for six weeks.
1:01:35It can be go to your neighboring town or just see the US, whatever it may be. Like you were saying, you don't have to spend a lot of money to travel. But go experience that. Go talk to people. Go experience life because the more stories and lived experiences you have, the more you'll be able to bring into your content and the more you'll be able to relate to people and the more likable of a human being you'll be. Go touch some grass. Oh, yeah. This was a super fun podcast. This is episode 194. If you're still here, please hit the subscribe button, drop us a comment, leave us a like. And as always, DM us on IG with any questions.
1:02:10We'll see you guys all next week. Peace.
From the publisher
Sign up for the Paid To Be You Waitlist here: https://the505podcast.courses/waitlistpaidtobeyou Let's talk about how to blow up your Personal Brand in 2026 Timestamps: 0:00 – Intro 0:18 – Paid to Be You Waitlist 0:33 – Interest over Viral 5:04 – Fewer ...
