MAX SESSIONS Thanks for being here, everybody. Wow. Okay. I got to get started here. Hi, everybody. In case you don't know who I am, my name is Chris Do. I'm a loud introvert, a recovering graphic designer, a serial dreamer, a refugee. What else am I? I'm an above-average student and a first-class troublemaker. I know it's been a long day. My day started very early. Some of you have flown from different places or jetlagged, so I know you're tired. Checking on the energy level. You guys doing okay today? Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. I love that. Well, so since you're so alert, I'm going to start you with a little math problem to solve for X. Okay. So I have approximately 227 slides. This presentation is 60 minutes long, times 60 seconds. So, go ahead and solve for... I'm just checking where my Asians are. Okay. All right. So, does anybody have the answer yet? Did you guys all figure it out? Really? No. That can't be right, one second per slide. Come on. I have to go fast tonight. Well, the answer is it doesn't matter. I have to go really fast. Okay. So I'm going to be firing through a bunch of slides. So, if you want to take pictures of the slides, you should do it. Get ready, because we're going to go, okay. So I just wanted to ask you this question. Have you ever wondered what makes a person a person of influence, someone who is so persuasive and magnetic that they're able to draw other people to them, that it seems like they just create opportunities for themselves? Genetics? I'm thinking the same thing too, maybe. Okay. Like people will just follow them, buy their products and do whatever they ask. I've been thinking about that a lot. But then I started also thinking, "But what if you're, like, unpopular, uncool, uninteresting? Are you triply screwed? Are you doomed forever?" And, you know, I'm just asking for a friend. Just wondering. Because I don't know, I play a person on TV or on YouTube, but I'm really super socially awkward. Like I was hyperventilating earlier. Just work it through. I got a lot of air in here. I work through this. Super self-conscious. I'm an introvert and I'm really into weird, stupid stuff, like nerdy stuff like comics, dungeons and dragons, video games. All right, all right. You... You know, you're at the Adobe Conference when you get a cheer for that, right? I love that. So, it's like, I guess I'm a design nerd. I don't know. And I've been using this term "nerd" or sometimes "a geek", and I didn't realize there was a difference. And so I looked it up. Did you know there's a difference between nerd and a geek? There's this comedian. This joke is totally stolen from him. His name is Don McMillan, and he's funny because he's the only comedian who uses Venn diagrams, and this is his Venn diagram, and he explains it, right? So in order for you to be a nerd, you have to be really smart. You have to have high intelligence quotient, and you have to be obsessive about weird things, and you also have to be socially awkward. So not everybody gets to call themselves a "nerd." Okay. And so you start to wonder, "Well, what are the other parts of the Venn diagram?" So if you're really smart and you're obsessed, that's a geek.

And if you're really smart, and you're super socially awkward, that's a dork.

And the last one was pretty funny. If you're socially awkward and you're obsessed, do you know what that's called? It's totally called a stalker. So, you know, I'm a nerd, I'm a nerd because I like to think of myself as all these three things. And some of you are probably feeling like real seen-and-heard right now. I see you, okay? So, in 2014, I didn't know a lot about brand or personal branding, and I came upon this video, and I have to admit I didn't have any idea who this guy was. And this designer had asked me like, "Do you know who Aaron Draplin is?" I'm like, "No." And she's like, "You're just being so pretentious." I'm like, "No, I really don't know." So I had to go and look up on the Internet and I see this video, and the first video I've ever seen of Aaron Draplin was him at TEDx Portland. He gets up on stage and... I'll give you a little bit of him. Draplin's not here, is he? All right, cool. Because I make fun of him the whole time. Okay.

He goes up on stage, he says, "My name is Aaron James Draplin. I'm 40 years old and I'm a big guy trying to make it in the little leagues. I'm not qualified to be here. I don't have no credentials. Look them up. I've no awards, no nothing. And I don't even wear pants." So I was like, "This is the guy everybody's talking about. What is going on? What is going on here?" And what made him so special, so lovable, so desired that people will buy anything and get in lines out the door. What's going on with him? Was it because he's got some God given talent? Or maybe he's just really fortunate, a person at the right place or the right time with the right opportunity? Or maybe he won the genetic lottery with his good looks or something. So I have a question for all of you. "What is it about Mr. Draplin, Mr. AJD, that draws so many people to him?" And you know who you are? It's okay if you just identify yourself right now. What is it? Charisma, authenticity.

He's really hot. He is. You like him fluffy, right? Okay. All right. All right. So I think I know what the answer is and... So what I did was I stopped shaving. I started shopping at the "skinny and short" store and bought a whole new wardrobe. So I was on my way to becoming an influencer, I swear to you, right? And I just want to say a couple of things. You know, I know how to use Generative Fill, and I'm not even sure if Aaron even knows how to use Photoshop. So, you know, Adobe called me. We can work something out. But the real "A-ha" moment came to me when I started to study this video. I was watching it over and over and over again. That's my nature. I'm obsessed like that. And he did something that, up until that point, I didn't see a whole lot of other designers do. So in this sea of same, when everybody is trying to blend in, we're trying to fit in with the world, he just went the opposite direction. And it doesn't take that much for you to stand out to be different. And so here's what I came up with, and I think it might line up with why you're all attracted to him, too... that he was refreshingly transparent. If you just look at the first 60 seconds of his TED talk, he tells you his middle name. People don't usually open up with that. He tells you how old he is and that he's from Detroit, Michigan, and he's into this kind of music and this is his political affiliation. He tells you all of it. He tells you about his attack dog, Gary, and he licks the ice cream. He's like, "Good enough for his mouth, Good enough for my mouth." I'm like, "Ooh! Overshare, I think." So there was this high sense of self awareness and he was talking about it. He's like, "Everybody was busy trying to go to India, I was just trying to go to Indiana." And it hit. And I started to understand, this guy was bringing the full weight of his personality and he was not hiding from it. He was opening it up to show all of you. And there's something about that that I'm going to talk to you about. So I started to know these patterns and I developed a little bit of a framework. And it combines my love for cinema, for pop culture. And I say that because if I don't, I think there's some IP-copyright infringement here. So it's really a critical analysis of pop culture, media, film and comics. Disney, don't sue me, okay? So, I'm really into this stuff and the framework looks something like this. And I do want to say something here, which is, typically I'm doing personal branding workshops that are 8 to 10 hours long. I've done my best to squeeze it into a 60-minute talk. I'm just going to pull the highlights for you, and I'm going to share things that would normally be interactive, we would do this together, I'd make fun of you, you would try, you would fail, I would make fun of you. It would work something like that. But I'll just show you what some of the answers look like. You don't need to worry about this because I'm going to pull it apart. But there are basically four components to this thing, knowing who you are, your origin story, where you're born, your parents, all that stuff that's cultural capital that we trade on all the time. You know how when you see somebody like, "Oh, you're from the same town that I went to," or "You had that teacher", "You went to that school," or "You use that same software". We connect with each other that way. And then there's this larger thing, the people that surround us, our community, the city in which we live in, our allies or sidekicks. There's a lot of comic book references. It gets deeper than this. Okay. And then there's your defining attributes, the things that make you you... your catchphrases, your quirks, your idiosyncratic nature. Those are the things that you want to learn and tap into. And then there's this element that most people ignore, which we'll just call "the enemy", the things that you stand against, the things that are... the things that you're trying to get rid of in terms of the world. And that's what it kind of looks like. And I started to see these overlaps between comic book mythology and building a personal brand. So today, I'm going to talk to you about building a powerful personal brand, the Adobe MAX 2023 version of this. And my main goal is to help you unmask your superpower. And it's counterintuitive. It's not what you think it is. It's the opposite of what you think it is. And I'm going to do this in a couple of parts. So part one is the ugly story. Now, the ugly story has a story, too, because my wife and I were really good partners.

I don't ever do the grocery shopping. On occasion, I actually go in the store. Usually, I just sit in the car and wait for her, because she doesn't like to be rushed. That's the problem. So I'm there like, "Let's just get this and move on." So I go there and this thing catches my eye off the shelf. It's just screaming at me at Whole Foods and it says, "Hello, I'm ugly." I'm like, "Are you talking to me? Who's ugly? You're ugly or I'm ugly?" And so I picked this thing up purely based on design and packaging. So for those of you who don't believe design and packaging works, this is an example. And I'll tell you why, because now I'm telling their story to you, which you might tell someone else, and they paid me $0 for that. Also available, call me hashtag sponsored posts. So, I'm going to share a couple of things about this package, their story, and I want you to pay attention to it as if we're doing a workshop together, okay? And there's this concept called the 3F's. It was introduced to me by this guy named Brendan Kane, who was able to grow a million followers in 30 days or something like that. It's ridiculous what he's able to do. 30 days? Thanks. Thanks, Alex. Okay. So, he talks about when you tell a story, most humans connect to facts, feelings and fun. So, if you only talk about facts, you lose a lot of people. And if you only talk about feelings or fun, then you're potentially going to miss a third of your audience. So, whenever you tell a story, you try to include all three things. So, I'm going to ask you to pay attention. I'm going to read to you what is on this package and try to identify what is a fact, what is fun and what is a feeling, and then we'll go over it, as if we're working together. So, here's what it says. Oops! Let me go back.

This is beautiful on the inside, 100% upcycled peaches. So, that's a term, "upcycle." I know that term. I've not seen it used in food like this before. "Ugly fruit is thrown out because of the way it looks, but you should never judge a fruit by its cover," and by buying this package, "You are preventing two and a quarter pounds of ugly fruit from becoming waste." And then, "More peaches are thrown away in California than the state of Georgia produces annually." Right? The state known for peaches, according to Justin Bieber. Right? And then, lastly, at the back is this "Pit happens. While we do our best to remove all the pit traces from our product, sometimes Mother Nature just won't let go." So, how did the Ugly Company turn an unremarkable, bland, ho-hum product into a charismatic brand, one that we will talk about? And it's not because of the product itself, because it is pretty ugly. They're small pieces of dried fruit.

It's not because of that. It's not because it tastes any better. So, number one. They were able to turn a weakness into a strength, that something that is discarded becomes something that we value more than the discarded thing. And they trade on our guilt for landfill and food waste and food scarcity into gold, quite literally.

So, were you paying attention to the three F's? And they told a compelling story.

So, I broke it down for you. So, the waste, that's a fact, that we throw out more fruit in California than Georgia produces. That's a fact. And here's where it gets real interesting. Judging on appearance, that's a feeling. And so for those of you who have ever been judged or have judged someone and regretted it, you're going to start to connect to that story. There's an emotional bond that's happening there. And then when they say "Pit happens," we know what they mean. They don't really mean "Pit happens." So, that's just them having fun. So, we wink at each other, we're in on the joke and we're part of that story now. And lastly, it's just full of personality. They humanize a pretty bland category. I've never paid attention to dried fruit in my life. I don't know about you, but now all of a sudden, I'm paying attention to it, because they made it human and they made it relatable. And I'm going to share this quote with you, from my friend Yo Santosa, who says, "People don't fall in love with corporations. They fall in love with personalities." And here's the weird thing. As I look across the social media landscape and people are posting content all the time, it's strange to me how humans try so hard to be corporations, to sanitize everything that you do, to wash it, to run it by "a legal team" or something, so that you don't offend anybody, you don't say anything. So, it's really weird. Corporations are trying to be more human and humans are trying to be more like corporations. Now, that doesn't mean that if you have a lot of personality, that's a guarantee for success. There is this graphic that I want to share with you. I'm doing a little research from The Cut. I don't know what The Cut is, but they have this Venn diagram, because there's plenty of personalities that we hate, apparently. So, this is a diagram of people we hate. So, it's a diagram between "Tries too hard," "Doesn't try hard enough," and "Crimes against other celebrities". So, you'll see, it's kind of weird. So, in the "Tries too hard" category, you have Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, Anne Hathaway. I think it's pretty accurate. I don't know why, but they're all women. And there's something interesting about this. You'll see where this goes. And then there's the people who don't try hard at all. Universally agreed, right? Lindsay Lohan? Like, come on. And then "Crimes against other celebrities," they're all men. John Mayer, Jay Leno and Jesse James.

Oh, there's an argument happening over here. You okay with this graphic? You want me to amend it? Okay. We could do that later. All right. Anyways, and then the overlap is quite interesting between the "Tries to hard" and "Crimes against other celebrities," Taylor Swift, Angelina Jolie, and Ashton Kutcher. And "Doesn't try hard enough," and "Tries too hard" at the same time. He's able to pull it off. Kind of true. This is a damn good graphic, isn't it? That's why I stole it. Now I want to ask you, who do you think? Oh, I'm sorry I messed that part up. Who doesn't try enough, and commits crimes against other people? Kristen Stewart. It's amazing. So, who do you think tries too hard, doesn't try hard enough, and commits crimes against other celebrities? Kanye. I think he tries too hard, mostly. Okay, but you're pretty good here. Chris Brown.

Right? Okay. So, what is the moral of this lesson besides me just trying to steal a joke, is, I guess the rule in life is to try but not too hard and just don't hurt other people. Pretty good rule to live by. So, we want to make some effort, but we definitely don't want to hurt other people on our way up. Part two of this is the 21st century brand, and that's what we're here trying to help you do, so that you can become more influential, so you can create those kind of opportunities, so you can magnetize yourself and draw those things to you. It's a wonderful thing when it starts to happen for you. And so we're all using the same language. I'm going to refer to Marty Neumeier's definition of "brand." A brand is a person's gut feeling about a product, service or organization. So, it's not what you say it is, it's what they say it is. Right? So, we know this. Products are made in factories where brands are built and made in the hearts and the minds of people. Hearts and minds, just remember that.

And then I came upon this article in the Harvard Business Review. And there was this thing. It was like, "Build your personal brand. What an amazing..." Okay, not that great of an article, but they said that your brand is built, basically, around every interaction, that you have, that people are forming an opinion about you. And if that is true, there are a couple of hundred people in this room and everybody here will have a separate opinion about me and each other. So, does that mean there are possibly infinite versions of ourselves? Possibly. Well, I had to do that because I needed to show the slide that maybe we're living. See how it works, you guys? In the multiverse. And you notice the last couple of years, maybe the last ten years, the conversation on the multiverse is increasing across different media. It's really interesting. I'm fascinated by these kinds of concepts. Well, at least in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the multiverse is a bad thing. Like "there's one true you," and then "there's alternates," right? And so Season 2 of Loki is out and it's awesome, the best series, you know. The other ones not so good. That there's a whole-time variance authority that's trying to prevent "these variants" from existing, so much so that he who remains is trying his sole job is to maintain the sacred timeline, the one version, and actually eliminate the other versions of you. So, we're, kind of, at war with these different versions of ourselves. That's at least my premise. Now I want to ask you this question. What if, instead of us fighting against these different versions, that we are all meant to be a more unified whole, that we can learn to live in peace with these different versions? And so that we can go from this disjointed self that's misaligned to something much better, something more cohesive and whole. I'm going to talk about that.

So, this is the new brand ROI. This is a big concept because a lot of times when people see me, they hear about branding, personal branding, they think I'm going to teach them social media hacks, how to hack the algorithm, what you need to post. It ain't about that. That was a trick to get you here. I want to do something that's more meaningful, more soulful to you. So, it takes a little bit of work for me to establish the foundation for this. But I tell you, it's completely worth it. So, I believe in this idea that there's karmic equity and you think of a bank. It's like you make a deposit every time you do something that's good and you expect nothing in return. And the more that you can do this over time without taking anything out, it builds in a compounded way, builds exponentially. But every time you ask for something, it resets back to zero. Your account gets drained back to zero. Does that make sense? So, when you post a piece of content and it's to market your course or to hire you or to give you an opportunity or to review your portfolio or your resume, you are emptying your bank account again. And to me, karma is just the energy you use to reset that balance. And that's what we're trying to do. So, I came upon this, the old rules of brand awareness. And it's pretty solid here. Make something for everyone. Tell our story, attract customers, and to build brand awareness. A lot of you are doing this very playbook right now. The new rules look something like this. Understand the customer story. Make something that they want, not what you want. Give them a story to tell, and create brand affinity. So, I take you back to the Ugly Company, the Ugly fruit company. What they did was they understood my story, what I want to do, which is to reduce waste and to not fill up the dump with things that we don't necessarily need to throw away. So, it's like into conservation, all those things. And it's now, I'm going around telling their story, and that's what you really want. And so we're trying to find this balance between the things you have to do, for money versus the long-term game, which is to build massive brand value. And these are at odds with each other. So, that's what the Harvard Business Review article talks about, that performance marketing is good for short-term revenue, but it comes at the cost of long-term brand building value. So, it's revenue versus value. And I'm going to show it to you and how it looks. So, instead of playing the short-term game, we're going to go play the infinite game, the game which we get to play forever, for as long as possible, and that's the whole point of the game in itself. Now, I came upon a piece of... like a News-Press, news piece for Reese Witherspoon, and I think she's a pretty awesome person, a pretty awesome actress, but not, like, the best. And I didn't realize this, but she has grown a massive social following 29 million followers on Instagram.

And here's what she's been able to do with the 29 million followers on Instagram. She's turned this into a book club with two and a half million people reading books. Anybody here part of her book club? Okay, a couple of people. All right. You don't have to be shy about it. I see you. They can't see you but I see you. It's okay. All right. Yeah. It's all right to be a, so, here's what she's been able to do. She takes her general brand awareness and the connections she's been able to build with fans of the films that she's been on, she creates a book club and she recommends books. Now, here's the really interesting thing. In order for you, as an author, to have your book circulated within the book club, you have to grant her the media rights. Shrewd woman. So, she can make movies, TV shows or whatever she wants. But then you're thinking, "Isn't that exploiting the author?" How many authors would like to get their book in front of two and a half million hungry minds? That would be fantastic for the author. So, it's a win-win. And optioning your movie rights doesn't mean they don't get money either. They get money when the movie is made as well. So, she has this ultimate data collection machine, which is "I think these books are good. You read them, then they tell her these books are great. And based on that, she knows what TV shows and movies to produce." So, she sold her company, her production company, "Hello, Sunshine", for $900 million. Good on you, girl. Girl next door does all right. So, it got me to think like, "Okay, so you're not in movies, you're not a nepo baby, whatever. So, what can you do to become a more attractive character?" So, I've been thinking about this, and I usually would do this in workshops. So, I would ask people to think about somebody throughout time and history, that has held a place of high esteem and regard in your mind, right? So, you might think of some people like Mother Teresa, Gandhi or the Dalai Lama, and then I asked, "Now, really, think about them. Why are they so attractive to you? What is it about them?" And I would do this with a large group of people, and we almost always end up with the same three characteristics. They are... They're self-confident, they're self-aware, and they're vulnerable. Think back to Ugly fruit company. They're confident, they're self-aware, and they're vulnerable. So, we can borrow these concepts and we can start to apply them when we look at our own personal brand. So, now I'm going to break down the more specific components of it. The first really counterintuitive idea is that we must be willing to be vulnerable to build meaningful connection. That's a Brené Brown quote. I have a slide for it somewhere. So, you're perfectly imperfect the way you are. It got me into looking into Carl Jung, and he describes ourselves in a very different way than Freud does, that there's this persona, and all of us are in our persona right now. It's how we want the world to perceive us. It's what we do to get along with everyone else. And then the ego regulates the persona, our front-facing self versus our real self, our shadow self, this stuff that is private, that we rarely show to anybody, maybe to our only our trusted best friend or our partner in life, or maybe a sibling or a parent. And when there's conflict between these two... the public and the shadow self at least in the comic book world, that looks something like this. I love the Incredible Hulk because he is the manifestation of a split personality disorder. You have the cold, stoic Dr. Bruce Banner, who is like an incredible intellect. And then you have the Hulk, who is raging emotion. The angrier he gets, the more powerful he gets. So, therefore, he has unlimited power as long as he remains angry. It's kind of an interesting character, not just Hulk Smash. So, here's the problem. If we all show up as our persona, how we want the world to perceive us and how we get along, or how we show up to get along, what happens when you spend so much time doing that? And my fear and my belief and observation is that we forget who we really are. You pretend to be somebody long enough and you forget who you are. This is also my theory that why people like actors and actresses who pretend to be lovers in a movie actually fall in love afterwards, because they go through the same emotions that you would have. I don't think your heart and mind can figure out the difference. So, this is the battle that we have to work through. So, personal branding is not so much an act of creation, it's an act of self-discovery. Your self-story, your self-concept. Who are you and what makes you you? So, back to the world of comic books. There are characters who have no difference between their public persona, and their secret alter ego or identity. Reed Richards, Mister Fantastic is the same person. He doesn't have to hide anything. In his world, he's a hero. He's wealthy. He's respected. So, I think that's a clue, because sometimes I think these stories are designed to send a message to us in a more palatable form that's easier to consume. And so what I'd like to do is do a little shadow work with you. This is the part where you're going to have to take out a piece of paper, I think, or just write it with your iPhone, or whatever you have, or Pixel or whatever you use.

You know how I feel about that, so... And I just want to say this, as I invite you to try to participate and be vulnerable and explore a different, darker side of yourself, that I'm not a mental health professional, not even close to one. And sometimes when we do these exercises, we open cans of worms that I do not know how to deal with, I'm not trained to deal with. So, I just say you need to do this under that understanding that we can only go so far here. So, here's the first prompt for you. It's a very easy prompt. What we do is we peel back the layers of the onion. We start easy and we get more and more progressively more difficult. How do most people see you? How would they describe you, your personality? How would they describe what it is that you do? So, you just want to write like one, or two-word answers to this. Now, obviously, you're not going to be to work through the workshop here in 90 minutes or 32 minutes left now. So, just, that's the easy part. We can always describe what it is we do. I'm a designer, I'm a photographer, I'm an illustrator, I'm a social media manager. Whatever it is that you do, you can write that. And most people see me as something. So, I'm going to share with you what happened when we were on our European tour, when I actually did the workshop. Some of the answers, some of the people in this room, I won't say who they are. We'll see. Okay. So, my friend Anneli, she's a brand strategist. She's kind, she's caring, she's nurturing, she's deeply empathetic. She's a public speaker, an instructor. She's got this really warm, supportive, inclusive tone. And she's this blond woman, so she's like this ray of sunshine. And that might be literally the kinds of answers you might write to that first prompt. As you can see, it's just like what the public sees. Now, the second prompt to this is "But what they don't know is that I really struggle with this thing." So, some of you might see me as this gregarious, outgoing person who creates a lot of content. It's everywhere all the time. What you don't know is I was just gasping for air over there with stomach pains, just minutes before coming up on stage. So, now we start to, kind of, show the world the other side, the side that we very rarely show other people. And there's this rule from Entrepreneurs Organization, EO. And EO is an incredible organization. Anybody here EO members? We've got to work on that. They're all millionaires.

Okay, so maybe you'll be there sooner. You're already there, but you didn't join yet. They all had this thing called a "5% rule". So, what they say is, about 90% of what you share, you share with the world, right? It's the top five and the bottom five that you hide from everyone. So, if you have an incredible opportunity, if you close a $3 million gig, you don't go on Instagram and share that, because you're afraid people will judge you. There's that expression that people want you to see you do well, but just not better than them. So, it creates feelings of jealousy, right? That's why when you get a new whip, you might not want to post it, because your friends from your old neighborhood might judge you in a certain way, or they might come and rob you, either way.

And then there's that dark stuff like abuse, a divorce that you're going through, a really tough time, whatever it is, that's the stuff you don't share. But in EO, they say leave the 90% to the rest of the world. Show us the 5%, your high highs and your low lows. And so I think that's a hint for us, as to what we need to do and what we need to get in touch with. So, Anneli's going to go a little bit deeper. So, she struggles with self-confidence. So, there's the opposite side, the side that she shows people, what they see, and then there's the side that's really her. So, she struggles with self-confidence, that she feels guilt about wanting to be in the spotlight, because she's Swedish, and there's this thing. It's an idea of the Law of Jante, where you're not supposed to stand out, everybody's equal, everybody's the same. A bunch of Europeans here, whether you're Swedish or not, know what I'm talking about. They feel the same way. There's many expressions for this in Europe. In America, we love ourselves, we praise excellence and exceptionalism. The rest of the world, they don't know what we're doing here. They think we're all crazy. Okay? So, she has a lot of insecurity that she's approval-seeking and that she's too emotional. Those are her things. So... What we want to do is we want to start to generate a bunch of words that start to make us feel really uncomfortable, that are us in the side, that we're afraid to share with the world.

This is really scary stuff, but this is your shadow word, okay? So, when we do this in workshop format, you can imagine, because everybody is seeing everybody, no one wants to say anything, but when it opens up, the gates just go crazy and then it's a flood of emotion. It's a beautiful thing for me to witness. I feel like, when I run these workshops, if people are not crying, I failed, I've totally failed. Okay. So, Tom, he was at one of the workshops. He says, "I struggle with being a people pleaser." Okay, let's work with that. James struggles with substance abuse. He's a recovering addict. Phyllis struggles with age discrimination. She's gone through multiple careers in her life. And so people look at her like, "Shouldn't you be doing this by now?" Okay, so I'm going to take it back to Anneli here. So, her shadow word is "attention seeker." And then I asked her, "What lesson did you learn from your shadow word?" I think all the challenges that have been put in front of you were designed to teach you a lesson. The problem with most of us is we don't recognize that as a gift, we see it as an obstacle. We don't learn what we need to learn and guess what happens. We're doomed to repeat it over and over again.

So, she had a really difficult time. She goes, "Chris, being an attention seeker is really bad, considering where I come from, the society and the culture in which I was raised." "But what did you learn from it, Anneli? And how did you overcome this and how did it make you stronger?" And this is the path towards healing from this thing that causes you pain, to figuring out where you need to go.

So, if you're a recovering addict, what did you learn? If you're a people pleaser, what did you learn? Now, you've settled into what your shadow word is, we're going to change it by adding a transformer word. The transformer word changes the meaning of the original word. So, your shadow word could be one or two words, probably not more than that, and then you add a transformer word. And so here's, literally, what Tom did at the workshop, and I was just so pleased that somebody actually had some success. So, it was great. It was a good feeling for me. So Tom said, "I'm a proud people pleaser. Is that okay, Chris?" I'm saying if that fits with you and it feels good to you, you know, run with that. But it's interesting, because Tom builds communities and if you don't know who Tom is, Tom is the founder of Design Cuts. He is the community guy. And he wrote a book on this called, The Community Guy or something like that. So, that becomes a thing of strength for him. Now let's go back to Anneli.

Anneli and we're trying to work through this and it took a lot to get this out. Maybe she's a reformed attention seeker. That feels a little soft to me. Maybe she's a conflicted attention seeker. Or a conscious attention seeker.

It's not going anywhere. So we have to, kind of, rethink this. And then we say, like, maybe she's an attention economist, but then that takes away the original shadow word. Right now, it's like you're doing something different. You're like Gary Vaynerchuk or something. You day trade attention all of a sudden. So, we have to be careful when we add the transformer word, that we don't wash the real meaning and the power it has for us.

Instead of being an attention economist, maybe you're an attention trader. Same meaning. But then I started thinking like, "What's another word for trader, a day trader?" You're an attention broke-her.

And then we have fun with the way that we write it, so that it's a reminder for herself that if you're not careful, attention will break you. And that's a lesson that she needs to learn in all different ways. And I think she's on to something here. So if you can do this, take three words. You can turn them into two words, or you can combine two words and make them into one hybrid word.

And you get bonus points if you can use alliteration or rhyme, but what I would caution you against is making it cute. When we do this, people are like, "Oh, I can use three R's," but it means nothing. Or it sounds clever, but it has no real emotional value to you. I didn't ask James for permission. No. There's lots of James in the room and I'll just say it's a James.

I can do it, okay. So, he started coming up with ideas like, design addict, art addict, "art dict." That got some eyebrows, James. See what I'm saying? Yeah, but he likes that. He likes that. It sounds funny. Like, he's an "art dict." Maybe he has an "artdiction." Or maybe he's a "design-aholic." So, when we do this exercise, people are like, "Yeah, but I'm still struggling." Okay, okay, well, there's more ways to do this. We can lean into the people who hate us and we can just embrace them with the warmest hug and we can take back our power. So, another prompt that you can look at is, "What would your naysayers, your worst critics and your cynics and trolls, say about you, excluding family?" What would they say about you? So, I'll show you how this exercise looks. So, if you're like Phyllis, they might say she's old, she's past her prime. She's has-been, washed-up, a geezer, dusty, ancient dinosaur, grandma, geriatric. Remember, she's a late career switcher, who's also a brand strategist. And she did this, not with me. I'm just using her as an example here. I can't take credit for it. So, she uses grandmother as "brand mother". I'm like, "You're so clever, Phyllis. You should run this workshop." But she's not here, so I'm running it. Okay. So, here's what, somebody who talks about business and marketing a lot, a woman, and so these are some of what the critics might say about her that she's business obsessed, she's greedy, she doesn't have her priorities straight, she's money-hungry, she's a gold digger, a capitalistic, covetous, material girl.

And she takes "gold digger" and she turns it into "goal digger." And this is Jenna Kutcher and she has the number two podcast for marketing, I believe.

I'm not jealous. Not at all. So, my friend, Rick Morris, he's a freelance designer, art director, creative director. So, he calls himself a noble assassin. And then my other friend, Ash Thorp, who's had tremendous success and an amazing body of work. Some of you guys know who Ash Thorp is. He calls himself an art prostitute. He's not beating around the bush, and he's just keeping it real. And we know people who are ghostwriters. I'm like, "You're a ghostwriter? Shouldn't you just be a growth writer?" So there's this thing that if you say it with holding your tongue, with a lisp, you can sometimes hear it differently. So, yeah, I'm a ghost writer, then you can write it out differently. You can have fun with that. And then I saw this on a food truck. The guys who bake, they're the Yeastie Boys. That's pretty good, right? It's who they are, it's what they do. And there's this other person on social media. He's a real fitness buff. He runs militant workout programs. He goes by the name of Primal Swoledier. And then I have a friend who does speech. He coaches people on how to be better speaker. He has a program called Mind, Body, Spirit, and he really believes in martial arts and jujitsu, and I'm like, "Marshall, why don't we just call it 'Marshall Art?' Why are you working so hard?" Okay. So, I said earlier that staying vulnerable is a risk that we have to take if we want to make a meaningful connection.

And here's the problem, and the reason why I would encourage you to reduce down what it is that you describe yourself not what you do, but how you describe yourself. There's a big difference here. It's about you, your personality, is to make it as simple as possible to understand. Because complexity is the enemy of comprehension, retention and execution. And what you want to do is be able to create something that other people can tell the story for you, without you being in the room. That's how you know your story is really good. So, it requires a lot of editing for you to arrive at your two-word brand. The two-word brand is not your entire story. It's not even part of the story. It's just to get people to become interested in saying, "Tell me more. What does it mean to be a brand mother? What does it mean to be a primal swoledier?" So, when you arrive at your two-word brand, you can then now use this as a way to tell stories. And I'll give you an example of how I do this. So, story... I'll give you some of the structure, too. Now, when we look at story, I think like who are some of the best storytellers who have multibillion-dollar intellectual property? Of course, Marvel and DC. And Stan Lee is the master at creating characters. He's created some of the most iconic characters, and there was a lecture that he gave, I think, at UCLA on how he created Spider-Man. He goes, "What we have to do is we have to just figure out the hardest thing to do is figure out your superpower.

And then once you figure out the superpower, you can give it a name. And then we have to invent some personal problems." So, he was sitting in his room and he saw a fly crawling up on the wall. He's like, "That's a superpower. What if you can crawl up on the wall?" So, he figured out the superpower was the hardest part. So, what do we call him? Mosquito-Man? Fly-Man? That's not cool. Spider-Man. And as he tells the story, he runs to his editor and he says, "I got this hero. It's called Spider-Man." He goes, "That's the dumbest idea, Stan. Don't you know people are afraid of spiders?" He goes, "What else you got?" "Well, you don't even understand. He's a teenager." He goes, "Stan, no heroes are teenagers. Only sidekicks can be teenagers." Well, how this story works out. So, he's the wall crawler, he's Spider-Man, and he's a teenager. And this is a clue for you and how you can tell your story. Your superpower begins with your two-word brand.

And it starts to tell people a little bit about who you are and what makes you unique and different.

So, now we're able to dive into the origin story. Now he knows his powers. He knows what he's going to call them. He knows a little bit about his problems. And so, a lot of people don't know the full story of Spider-Man. He was an orphan raised by his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. He's an ordinary kid who gets picked on by a lot of people, being bullied. And he's kind of a really super smart geek nerd. And he's bitten by a radioactive spider. And when he does so, he immediately uses this newfound power to get revenge, to seek fame and to gain money. And there was this pivotal moment in his life, in his storyline, in which a criminal is running out of a TV studio and the cop says, "Stop him." And Spider-Man is like, or Peter Parker says, "It's not my job. Not my job." And you know what happens to the rest of that story, right? So, a lot of people think Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man when he was bitten by a radioactive spider. That's not when he became Spider-Man. That's when he gained the power. But when he decided not to act, and to do the right thing, that's when he became Spider-Man, because what happened was that criminal who got away from him was the exact person who murdered his Uncle Ben. And that's the tragedy of Spider-Man. And he's one of the most tragic characters in the Marvel Cinematic universe. Every time I think about him, I just want to cry, because he feels so guilty for using his power for himself that he's always putting his needs second every single time. And if you haven't seen it, "Across the Spider-Verse" and "Into the Spider-Verse", I bawl like a baby, I highly recommend you watch that. So, this also, kind of, gives you a clue as to why certain characters are so sticky, like, why we remember them and we'll talk about them, and our children and our children's children will talk about them, and how they architect and design these things, and the necessity of tragedy and trauma in building up your story.

And Robert McKee, who wrote the book "Story", he was a story consultant he says, if there's no conflict, there's no story. Stories have to have conflict. And in the fictional world, we can see this, and that almost all these heroes, they're orphans or they're abused and whatever's going on. Black Panther's father was killed in a terrorist attack, according to MCU. Clark Kent, Kal-El, his whole planet was exploded, all of his people died. His parents died. It's like, that's a pretty tragic beginning.

Tony Stark's parents killed. Tony Stark is an alcoholic. Daredevil's mom was the nun that he didn't find out until much later in his life. Vision's father, homicidal AI robot. Black Bolt killed his parents accidentally by speaking.

You know Batman's story.

So, there's this part where I start to wonder, like, why is it that some characters go through a traumatic experience in their life and emerge a hero, while some become a villain? Do you guys know why? Adversity and trauma, how they process this. So, my feeling is the hero overcomes and becomes stronger because of the trauma, whereas the villain stays victimized and wants to get revenge, and wants to hurt other people, as a response. So, when you're crafting your story and you're trying to tell your story, adversity is your ally. Tap into that. Let people in. You become much more relatable and real for this. So, how to use this in storytelling? Now, I first came up on stage and I introduced myself as a loud introvert, and it's not a great example of a two-word brand, but it's mine. I'm using it. Okay? And the way I use this in storytelling is, when I want to make a post, I want to make sure that the post ends on "Chris is a loud introvert. He's socially awkward. He struggles with all this public speaking stuff." So, I was going through a batch of my old files, or my old photos, and I came across this one, where I won an Emmy for a title that I designed, and I was like, "What am I going to write about this?" I'm not going to write, like, "Yeah, congratulations to me. I'm so proud of me and my team, whatever, blah, blah, blah." So, I wrote about the story, about how painful it was for me to think about the 30 seconds that I have to say when I accept my award. And then my knees are shaking and I'm in the audience and a whole bunch of weird things happen in that moment. And this is the post that is the most liked and engaged post I've ever put up on LinkedIn. You can see it has almost 8000 likes or points of engagement. So, if you figure out what your two-word brand is and you search for the stories, it should dovetail into that, that reinforces your two-word brand. Does that make sense, everybody? Okay, good. You guys had more energy earlier. I get it. End of day. I know I'm throwing a lot of stuff at you. It's cool. Here's another way for you to find out who you are and your story. Because it's not easy to know yourself. It's one of the most difficult things to do is the mentor. And some of you know this. You know Batman's mentor, his teacher, is also his enemy, Ra's al Ghul. You know who my mentor was? José Caballer. And he and I are the exact opposite. And there was a period in time where he became my nemesis. It's kind of weird how that works. So, some of you have a parent that plays both roles both your mentor and your nemesis, and if that is your story, tap into that. It's very interesting for me to see like who's whose teacher? Tony Robbins, one of the most powerful, wealthy, successful personal development people, his mentor was Jim Rohn. He met Jim Rohn when he was like 18 or 19 years old, and that changed his life. And Jim Rohn's mentor, was a guy named J. Earl Shoaff, whose mentor was also James Breckenridge. It's quite interesting how the mentor shapes you. By just saying, "This was my mentor," we make assumptions about who you are and your values and your beliefs, just because we know who your mentor is, so tap into that. It's really interesting to me that Gary Vee often cites his mom now, more than his dad, as his mentor. First half of his story was all about his dad, the hustle thing, immigrant, working really hard. Now it's about empathy, kindness.

Already mentioned Bruce Wayne. So, here's the next prompt for you, "Who shaped your thinking, your values and your beliefs, and what did you learn from them?" And here's where you add the conflict back in.

"How did you initially resist?" So, for me and José, José is like, "Let's go make videos on YouTube." Like, "Dude, I do not want to do that. I'm too old.

I say things that piss people off...

and I don't want to risk my business. You do it." And, you know, when he told me, "I'm not doing this unless you do it.

I need you not behind the camera, but in front of the camera." And him doing so changed the course of my life. And I'm very grateful for him for that. So, think about who your mentor is, figure out the conflict and why you resist it and what lesson you learned. Tell that story. I mentioned before about the community and the culture. The city says a lot about you, the city in which you were born and the city in which you choose to live in. It's part of your cultural capital. So, ask yourself, "What do these things say about me, where I live and where I was born?" And so, most of you here "live in Los Angeles," right? There's a lot of people here from L.A. This works better when we're not in L.A. So, right. So, we know what all the common stereotypes are about people from L.A. This plays much better outside that there's a lot of superficiality, plastic surgery. Everybody is super, hyper health conscious. Everybody's fit and drinking green juice. Not everybody here, obviously. Not judging. That everybody is flashy and loud. City of stars and celebrities everywhere. Where you can live the big dream, and horrific traffic. Most of this is true. So, when we lean into this, what assumptions do people have about the city in which you live in, you embrace it, you don't fight it. And I used to live on the west side. There was a church, a very progressive church, and they have the most amazing messaging and marketing branding campaign I've ever seen.

This is what they say. "Come in for a faith lift." Good, right? From a church? Come on! This is winning gold awards writing.

Remember that lisp thing? It comes in handy sometimes. So, the villains. The villains are as important as the heroes in the story, and I would argue, probably even more important in your story than what you say you do. Because true fans need true critics. Freddie Öst from Snask, a Swedish agency, he has a book and he has this concept, make enemies, the order is important. Make enemies and gain fans, because when we find out what you stand against, we are like, "Okay, the enemy of my enemy is my friend." So, what you have to do is you have to learn how to pick a fight. It's a fight against something. And so here's the interesting thing. I think the reason why these characters I'm going to share with you are successful is because, look at their villains. They're brilliant. They're usually the equal opposite of the hero. Superman's all powerful. He's a little dumb. He's a Boy Scout. Lex Luthor is brilliant, genius and is super wealthy, but he's very weak physically. Batman super strong, Joker's crazy. Batman has a code of conduct. Joker has a code of chaos.

And then Spider-Man's enemies go on and on and on, including just being a misunderstood teenager.

It's tough to be Peter Parker. So, when you start to look at the villains in your story, ask yourself, "What annoys me. What makes me mad?" Because your complaint can become your calling.

There's a rule that somebody shared with me. You're allowed to complain about things one time. If you complain about it twice, you're just a whiner.

So, whatever I tell my kids, do something about it. Stop complaining. Invent the solution to your problem. So, make a list of some villains in your story and give them a cute nickname. When you label them, you own them. And nobody is better at this than Donald Trump. He's the master. This is a master class. Harvard should teach a class about this. There's a guy who blew up on the Internet. His name is Andrew Tate, a very controversial character. And he basically says, "Anybody who doesn't believe what I believe, you're the enemy. You're just the Matrix." And when pressed to explain what the Matrix is, he doesn't even explain it. But there's a bunch of young men out there like, "The Matrix, man. The Matrix is out to get me." He's arrested, indited? The Matrix. The Matrix. On a less serious note, there's this company that's done a brilliant job in marketing, I think they're based out of San Diego called Dr. Squatch. And I saw these ads. They didn't pay me. I watched all of them from beginning to end, multiple times, to study. So, Dr. Squatch, one of their funny ads is the guy who's in the woods, takes the dish. He throws it against a rock, and breaks. He goes, "You're a man. You're not a dish." Doesn't even make sense.

And he goes, "Do you know what's in your soap? It's mostly detergents, chemicals, things you can't even pronounce." So, their enemy, they just made them up. "It's big soap." They borrowed the language of Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, and they just made it up. And I became a customer, like two and a half years going now. It's the power of identifying an enemy, giving them a name and saying, "Now we're against this." I'm against big anything, big government, big soap, whatever. You got me. And Dove their enemy is beauty standards. Brilliant campaign. "I'm a Mac. I'm a PC." Right? Okay. All right. We're going to go there. I think you might be outnumbered, friend, but we'll see. Is Microsoft sponsoring this? No. Okay. All right. Did you know that Bill Gates was really pissed off at Steve Jobs for doing this? Because he characterized them in a very unflattering way? And then there's this oat company called Oatly, oat milk. "It's like milk, but made for humans." The dairy farmers sued them for this. Oh, yeah, they won. It's all right. And 7UP, the way they launched their brand stunned Cola.

Patagonia. "We're in business to save our home planet." You know who the enemy is. So, what you want to do is you want to galvanize your community by aligning them a common cause to fight against something. I think the only way that humans will have world peace is when we get invaded by aliens. Now we'll put aside our petty differences and we'll go fight the enemy. It's the only time we'll come together. So, just ask yourself, "We're in business to end what?" Not to make nice with, but to end this idea. And so when we look at the future, when we describe ourselves, I know I piss off people when I say this, I think of the future as private art school without the crippling debt. Shots are fired. Okay? Style. We're coming to the end of the presentation here. Style is the icons and lexicons, your language and your symbols. So, you want to start to develop and be very intentional about how you present yourself, because packaging does matter. And this is the package, because you are the package.

And style defined by John or Prine is, "If you keep making the same mistake long enough, it becomes your style." So, you look at Daft Punk, Sia. Oops, I pushed the wrong button I was told not to push.

But it's a Mac and it works. So, I hit this button and we're back, see? Yeah. All right. Thank you, everybody. Okay, I won't push that button again. Sia wanted to keep herself out of the media, the limelight, so she wears this wig and becomes super iconic. It becomes part of her brand. Warhol? Word is "wig." It just becomes him. Steve Jobs? Mock turtleneck and mom jeans. He needs to consult somebody on that, but whatever you know and lives all right. So, you embrace all these parts about you, the good, the bad and ugly, and so you ask yourself. And I like to reframe it like this. Instead of what makes you ugly and bad, what were you blessed with? So, I'm bald.

I have shiny, oily skin and I'm nearsighted, so I just think it's time to accessorize based on that. Okay? So, I start wearing hats and the hats become my I like, part of my identity, and opportunities have happened there. But we won't get into that. I'm nearsighted. Why not make the most of your eyewear? So, I wear these big bulky frames so that you can recognize me. They're part of my identity. So when I used to work in the motion design industry, I studied animation. And I don't know if you know this, but when they design characters for animation, they look at their silhouette first before they design any of the details. You can tell each and every single character, who Poe is, who's the mantis, who's the snake. And so you start to think about this, and then you start to think about color. And I will show you how powerful color can be in the identity, or design of your identity. Okay? Here, everybody looks exactly the same, and all we have to do is put red socks on one person and they stand out. But we can keep going. We can give them red glasses or a red hat, a red watch and a T-shirt with a red X over it. So, we start to design our identities so that people can see us and recognize us, and it becomes part of who we are and are part of our personal brand. So, what can you do with the color pink and white? Well, Karim Rashid has built an entire personal brand around this, pink and white. If you don't know who he is, look him up. So, what you should do is you start to design and develop your own mood board, collect the things that you start to think, "Okay, this could be me." Not now, but maybe in a couple of years and work towards building these things. This is a mood board I built a while ago and then eventually bought everything that's on here. Okay? Set the intention, then do it. Did you know that your signature can become your signature style? So, just out of curiosity, how many of you guys would identify as graphic designers? Just raise your hand. Keep your hand up. A lot of you. Now how many of you keep your hand up if you're a logo designer. So, about half of the designers. Okay. Thank you. So, for you, non-graphic designer, logo designers, it's really interesting. All you have to do is take a bunch of different instruments, markers, pens, a twig, a brush, dip them in ink, and just write your name over and over again, like 100 times with different instruments on different types of media. And eventually you'll come up with this... or this or this.

You guys recognize that signature, right? Yeah. I love Andrew Schulz's bit on this. He says, "I can't vote for Biden. He don't got merch. Donald Trump got merch. Merch game is strong." You can't even argue that. Again. Whatever your political affiliation is, doesn't matter. The other thing that you can do is to look at your initials and design your own monogram. And so I have a couple here just to share with you, some you might recognize, and then I will show you my example here. This is my name. And so I take the C, the D, and the O, and I put it in here. This is my system, my icons, my lexicon, my phrases. And the last bit I want to share with you is once you know who you are, what you stand for, your story, you can take a little snowflake and you keep building on that until it becomes an avalanche. And it's a beautiful thing. And whenever possible in the world of ideas, to name something is for you to own it. If you can name an issue, you can own it. And here's evidence of this Moore's Law, Murphy's Law. You get the drill. So, what we want to do is we want to take our own name, our own identity, our logo, our signature, our expressions, our beliefs. We start to create something from that. So, this is how I show you. So, you could screen capture this if you want. I would like for you to practice this. Once you figure out your name and your personal brand, you'll come to something here. So, here's how it works for us. We call ours, come on. Okay. I'm sorry. The slides didn't work and everything. Sorry. Calm down, Chris. Cool. Okay. Try adding something before the name, try adding something after the name and see what happens. So, now, here we go. So, we call our superfans the DoNuts, our community DoNation, our office space the DoJo, the newsletter that we don't write, the Daily Dose, the podcast may be Raw Do. My AI robot is called DoBot. A blockchain that I'm not working on is called CryptDo, and maybe tools that I'll develop is called PlayDo, and it can keep going, right? So, you can have lots of fun with this. So, I'm going to work on a book for sales strategies called DoFu, the way, right? Maybe our motto is "DoNut worry." And if I started a software company, I'd probably call it ADobe.

And what if you wanted to write a book? Maybe it's called Pocketful of Do. It just works. Okay, here's the summary here. Here's all the things in one slide here. Weak is strong. Perfect is boring. Real is relatable. Stop selling, start serving. Complexity is the enemy. Adversity is an ally not to run away from. Figure out what your two-word brand is. And your two-word brand is going to be a shadow word that creates some pain for you. That's a piece of truth that you've been hiding from the rest of the world. Add a transformer and you can own it. I'd like to end it on this before I get out of here, a quote from Picasso, "The meaning of life is to find your gift, and the purpose of life is to give it away." I wanted to make an amendment to that. That you are the gift. So, here's my resources, everybody. These are the books. A pause there so you can take it.

Okay, I'll pause here and you could take it. Thanks very much, everybody. I'm at Booth B230, if you want to come by. I'd love to see you. Thank you. THANK YOU!

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Powerful Personal Branding: Unmask Your True Identity - S6003

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ABOUT THE SESSION

In this talk, Chris Do, founder of The Futur, will delve into the captivating world of comics, pop culture, psychology, and storytelling to uncover powerful personal branding strategies that have allowed him to collaborate with Fortune 500 companies and build a loyal fan base of true believers. Learn how to assemble your own team of collaborators who will help you achieve your mission. Explore the importance of creating a captivating visual identity and how to remain consistent and authentic across all channels.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Identify your allies, sidekicks, archnemesis, rogues gallery of villains
  • Craft a compelling origin story, and discover your hidden superpower
  • Design a striking visual identity, and find your two-word brand

Technical Level: General Audience

Type: Luminary Session

Category: Inspiration

Track: Creativity and Design in Business, Graphic Design, Social Media and Marketing

Audience Types: Art/Creative Director, Business Strategist/Owner, Graphic Designer, Motion Designer, Photographer, Print Designer, Web Designer, 3D, Illustrator, Social Media Content Creator

This content is copyrighted by Adobe Inc. Any recording and posting of this content is strictly prohibited.


By accessing resources linked on this page ("Session Resources"), you agree that 1. Resources are Sample Files per our Terms of Use and 2. you will use Session Resources solely as directed by the applicable speaker.

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