CEO FOR LIFE Experience #25 Live Your Truth with David Brier (leadership styles)
Robert Barber 0:10
Well, hey, everybody. Thanks for coming back to the CEO for Life Experience podcast. And I have David Brier here with me today. And he was gracious enough to jump on. I've been stalking him for a while guys. So I just want to let you know. So let me just read real quick of why I had to get David on here. So Google's number one rebranding experts, Slayer of the mundane liberate, or the awesome advisor to CEOs. You know, I could just go on and on. But just I had a little precursor time to talk to him. And he is a force to be reckoned with David, thanks for coming on.
David Brier 0:43
Totally My pleasure, man. Totally. My pleasure.
Robert Barber 0:45
Sweet. So let's always start with just maybe like, a minute or two of context. So people listening to get to know you just a little bit.
David Brier 0:53
Sure. Well, I mean, I'm going to use what I actually do you know, rich Cardona. Yeah. Rich, you know, Rich. Yeah, yeah. These rich, rich, rich and I were on a clubhouse recently. Yeah. And Rich, and I were on a clubhouse recently. And, and someone had like, brought me up to the stage on the in the clubhouse room and said, Oh, and here's David Brier, for anybody that doesn't know David. So they want you to give him a little bit of, you know, give him a little snapshot. And so I gave him whatever came by the time and rich and rich was also on stage. And he said, David, you are so underselling yourself right now, what you said, when I asked you this on my podcast, as you said, I blow towards the shit out of mediocrity. And and so I think I'm good. I like that. It's good and succinct, and it kinda like sets the stage so I bloated I blowtorch the shit out of mediocrity is my answer to your question.
Robert Barber 1:49
It is, would love to spend a week just in your atmosphere, man, because it must be fun. I tell you what, um, so anyway, so there you go, guys. So now you got some context. For David. David, I wanted to get you on tape because I want to start talking about obviously, you live in breed brand, and you understand it intimately. And you you, you preach about it. So talk a little bit. So in the context of CEO for life, which is you're born as the CEO for your life, you need to own it, how does a person begin to own their brand?
David Brier 2:25
Well, I this is this is very near and dear to my heart because of because it's very much my own personal philosophy. The bottom line is is. And I'm going to give this little context because I think it's a very, very important distinction. Most people that I know whether they are an entrepreneur, looking at their own product, or service or company and branding that or themselves, there's a blind spot, there's a wrong turn, they make they reach a fork in the road, and they go, Hmm, which one should I pick, and probably 95% of them pick the wrong one to go down, which is a brand is going to give me power. Bullshit, you are going to give a brand power you are what breathes life into a brand. Okay, the brand's doesn't give you Oh, now that I have a brand, I have the platform, the rights, the permission to communicate, stand up for something, have a voice bullshit, you your voice, your vision, your philosophy, your beliefs, your standards are what breathe life into a brand, whether it's a personal brand, or it's a corporate brand of any sort. So that's the first thing I mean that if you understand that, you will save yourself decades of waiting for enough followers to be legitimate enough, this, you're always looking for these metrics to give somehow give you the street cred bullshit, you are the street cred or you're not. And if you're not, and you're happy with that, then fine, but if you are poor, or even even better, whichever way you go, you are injecting whatever street cred exists or ceases to exist, because of your actions and your decisions. And what you embracing the values that you that you hold true to yourself.
Robert Barber 4:22
So that leads me to this next question, because we briefly touched on it begin with and this kind of gives me the thread for the discussion is so and I'll use my own experience when I first was stepping out into my brand moved out of corporate building my brand in a real estate realm and those kind of things. I was almost apologetic, like I was very fearful of like, stepping on someone's toes or doing you know, and then when I moved into coaching, I was doing the same thing. And I was I was finding myself reverting back to some apologetic position about who I was and that was and I saw that begin to bleed through my brand. So talk a little bit about owning and non and not being apologetic about Because I can't I can't wait to hear you talk about this.
David Brier 5:03
Well, you just remind you just reminded me some years ago, I'm a big fan. I'm a great music family that knows knows me follows me. I'm a great lover of several things mean, amazing coffee, great food, handmade dark chocolate, and music besides aren't designed in language. I mean, but those things are kind of like, ooh, right. And so Music Man music, music music. So one of the forms of music that I love greatly is the incredible pneus of jazz. I love the I love the I love. See, to me jazz is kind of like that art form where as distinct from, let's say classical classical is this is the celebration of the written note. Jazz is the celebration of the yet to be written note. Yeah, right. It's the discovery in real time. And so there's this listen to this. It's a complete adventure. I mean, you get you, you, you get someone who just goes man, like frickin you're like going, Oh, my God, you're and you're, you're just riding on their coattails like, Um, where's the next note? Oh, man, and it's an emotional distance Beautiful. Well, the thing is, is that to me, the other great moment and experience of that is when you get some of these incredible vocalists who can scat, right, one who's great. His name is Kurt Elling, he's out of out of Chicago. Current. There's something called vocalese, which is, which is, for those that don't know, there, there were certain artists who and who were vocalists and singers, who would take actual music, recorded musical solos. And they would then assign lyrics to them, and then perform them with the lyrics now, and they would be amazing. You listened to it. And it was a combination of concepts and language and poetry and melody and adventure, all of this thrown together. Well, he did this amazing song. And I forget the name of the song might be called the wonder or possibly. But to answer your question, one of the things he took a quote from a poet, which I was unfamiliar with, and it went something along lies like this, that if dreaming is dangerous, the answer is not to dream. But to dream more to dream so so he took that concept and those words and tied it into this vocalese thing. So I took his beautiful like, like, Oh, my, it just tore your heart out this melody in this thing, and saying it the way he sang it from the heart. If they if dreaming is dangerous, the answer is not to during less, but to dream more, and to dream eight, all the tie. Like yeah, that's if you don't approach life like that. Yeah. I asked, I asked those those who are listening to this right now. What if you discovered later in life, that you had this amazing gift that you didn't yet share? That to me would be the most heart wrenching point of regret and despair that what it's like, wait a second, you 20 years into your career, 30 years into career for using Screw you and you all of a sudden discovered when I talk that actually impacts people's lives. When I draw, when I write when I do this, when I do whatever, that actually changed people's lives. And I wasn't doing it. That to me would be the biggest dagger in the heart. And that that so that, because I've been doing what I've been doing for 41 years. And I love what I do. I love the impact. I love that I that there are people that enjoy and get value from it. But I always keep upping my own game. Because if we are not our own worst enemy, we must be our own worst enemy. We must be ready to outdo what we did yesterday. Yeah. And the last hour if I am not ready to absolutely make that historic, and just old news. And that was like, Well, that was then this is the new standard. And then this is the new standard. This is if I'm not living in that way. Right. I feel frankly dead. And so that's that's the push.
Robert Barber 9:36
Yeah, no, I love I love exactly what you're saying, you know, and it's, you know, I had this I have this bucket that I keep at home and it's called the regret bucket. And so instead of the bucket list, I have a bucket that I say, you know, if I end the day or the year of the week, and it's filling up, then I know I got a problem, right? I want an empty bucket when I die of the regrets. And I love I love that perspective. Let's flip it just a little bit in running through the filter of someone who's 25, right? Because I'm thinking to myself, if I'm listening to this, and I'm 25, I'm not so much thinking about regrets, right? I just maybe I would didn't get the concept of that yet. So what is someone like 25 or 18? Or 19? Or 20, whatever? How would that apply to them? I mean, I know you're talking about getting up every day, but maybe talk a little bit about being unapologetic at that age in that early on stage. Well, you're probably always you Right, right, David. I mean, I don't think you probably changed a whole lot. I think you were always a force to be reckoned with. No, no,
David Brier 10:32
no, I look, I mean, I, you know, if I if I didn't grow since I was totally fine. I mean, I, you know, it's, you know, yeah, there was always that spark, but it was a matter of like, I always had, you know, I if I didn't own my spark, right, then I would have, you know, I wouldn't have gone okay, how much brighter can that spark get? Because I'm always I'm always challenging myself, right? Because even today, even today, I'm gonna answer your question about the 25 year old but even today, you know, like, like, last quarter, I started a masterclass because with it was something that after I came out with the with Brandon's invention, the book, and people were like, Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, you gotta do something on like, I just mean, like, got this in my mind. And then I finally found the right partner to do with. And then what happened was, I go, I started looking, because my program is, is it's, it's a hybrid of tuna masterclass, and, and a mentorship. So I literally spend two hours every Saturday morning with these guys for eight weeks. And they're like, minds are blown after about week three, they're like, Saturday morning is my favorite time of the week. You know, they're like, exploding. And then I started to see the impact that that was having. Because I take for granted the viewpoint that I natively have. And I think that everybody probably does they look they live life, it's the air they breathe. It's the you know, they do they even if they're highly self aware, they're still like, well, this is the way I do stuff. So I would say to save 25 year olds, you know, 10 or 20 years of Oh, damn, I wish I knew that when. So that's what this is. When I was younger, I had the viewpoint. I, you know, I always was involved in, in art creation. And what you see right there that that painting of George Harrison I did when I was like about 1516 years old. Okay. So I mean, all the love the art, you see, it's all art, I've done my career. And so the thing that happened was, you know, I was like I wanted to be I wanted to become, I wanted to become famous. That was my thing. When I was younger. It was like, because of my I had this, this outlet and stuff to channel and I and I wanted the fame that came along with that. That was what my was my mindset was. And now that I've been doing it for four decades, plus, I was speaking with Claude silver from VaynerMedia. When we first met, we sat down and we immediately jumped into a Heart to Heart Conference. And we were like, we're like, family. It's just like, I love her, the ends of the earth. And that's just what we have together. And I said to us, you know, I said, when I was younger, I was really kind of really a lot of touched on fame. But as I realized, now my attention is on legacy. And I said, and the only difference between fame and legacy famous. This is about me, legacy is this is about you. And that's what I would say to the 25 year old. Yes, you may be at a point where you're like, Oh, you're climbing up the ladder? How do I make my mark? How do I lead make that dent? How do I how do I you know, not have zero impact? Okay? Just remember. Ultimately, you're going to arrive at a point where it becomes legacy, start being aware of the legacy now. Yes, you might be doing things to advance yourself. But if you do, if you're advancing yourself in the context of legacy, it will have a very different flavor than if you're advancing yourself just to advance yourself. That's my advice to a 25 year old.
Robert Barber 14:21
Yeah, parallels the concept of the success to significance, right. So we're all going to hit that transition at some point in time. And I agree, I wish I would have had that significance mindset earlier. Right. But you know, but I didn't, you know, the way I grew up, you know, we were just trying to make it right. I mean, we're just trying to make things happen. And so you kind of get caught through that process. But you're right. I mean, I love the advice that you give right there is that anyone that's listening to this, if you're if you're early on in your career, start bringing the significance mindset into it. That's That's amazing, Dave, that's amazing. So let's, let's switch a little bit. From personal to like, to business and so someone who's either pivoting into start a new business, or they're, you know, they're they're launching their business and maybe their 16 year old, you know, flipping shoes or whatever, you know, what is what is the number one mistake people make with trying to get the word out about their brand? What's the mistake that you're seeing right now?
David Brier 15:23
They keep talking about themselves. The story's not about you. I tell I tell clients all the time, I say, look, the pathway to your customers front door starts at their front door. That's where the, that's where the pathway starts. And that's how they'll eventually arrive at your front door. The things that are most real to them aren't right at the threshold of their front door. The problems, the challenges, the aspirations, the objectives. That's where the conversation starts. They don't give a shit about you yet. Nor should that.
Yeah, exactly. You know,
nor should they, you know, and this disease that we see, so, unfortunately, fairly rapid, this entitlement, you're not entitled to shit. I don't care how good you are. I don't care how good you are. I don't care how talented you are not yet. Doesn't mean you don't deserve it. It doesn't mean you won't get it. Yeah. But it's not the first thing. You know, I compare it because everyone seems to understand this sort of analogy, like compared to going out on the first date. If I got a first date with somebody, absolutely crushing them. And all mister, let me tell you all about me. How good is that? How good? Is that date? Gonna go? Not so good. No, I go, Hey, what do you what are your what are your interests? What are your passions? What do you hope to be achieving in 510 1520 years? We're gonna be there for a while. We're gonna be engaged.
Robert Barber 17:15
Yeah. Yep. You know, it's one of the things I learned early on, in the cold calling process was, I'm not here to sell anybody anything. I want to know where their pain points are. Right? So I want to understand, you know, what, what are their needs, and you know, that's a, it's a, it's, it's so it's so not taught. It really isn't. I mean, it's, we're taught to build brand and logos and story and get out and push and push and push. And it goes back to I just escaped my mind. Gosh, it goes back to, you know, the whole the put the push marketing or the push emails or those kinds of things. You got to have people that want to hear from you first. And when they're ready to hear from you, then you can really put your message out there, right.
David Brier 18:04
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's that but but I take it even one step one or two steps farther, which is. You know, it's like this, and this took me close to 40 years to realize, we hear this thing, and I'm always I'm always, like, I always have like, like, like, warning bells go off whenever I hear like a certain phrase used too often, because then it just becomes like this sort of mindless punch line. And I'm guilty of using as well. But like we all talk about pain points, right? pain points is one of those things. So unfortunately, that falls into whether we turn to someone in sales or someone in marketing or something. This is something that we'll talk about the pain points, if you don't understand is one parallel factor, you will miss what the hell pain points means. And that's this. Someone's someone does not have a problem, quote, pain without an aspiration. If I was not seeking something, a new freedom, a new ability, a new way to do things, a simple way to do things if I didn't have that, because that just means that okay, I'm here, and that's there. The only reason I have a problem is because I actually have an aspiration. And if you don't realize that those two things go hand in hand. Problem equals aspiration equals goal equals challenge. Those are all parallel. If you don't know those parallel, you're freaking clueless. You are clueless. You will I will predict for those listening if you don't understand those, you've already lost hundreds of 1000s of dollars, if not millions of dollars in personal money. revenue in the money you can make for others etc. Guaranteed irrefutable. No question not contestable. That's just the way it is. I know it. I know it. I have made my clients so much money by just getting them to understand that one thing. Oh, remember, it's not just the pay Don't be Don't Don't be lazy and you're thinking that's the other thing I tell 25 year old, do not be lazy anything. It's like Do not just look for the easy answer. Keep on asking why? Keep on asking why you can ask why another time you haven't gotten you haven't peel the onion back enough. Anyway, there you go. Yeah.
Robert Barber 20:44
So anyone that's listening to this, I need you to stop right now. And I need you to rewind what just happened. Because there's so much there's so much here, we could spend two hours on this, David, but, but in please, if you're playing at one and a half times speed, please go back and listen to one time speed. You know, it's, you know, I just internalize everything you just said, David in what I what I internalized was that I could be sitting here looking at all the challenges that I have going on, or all the pain points that I have going on. But the reason I have them is because I have an aspiration. So it really just flipped. Everything that I'm looking at is an obstacle in my mind when you said that. It is such a huge learning that I had never even thought about it that way before that. The reason I'm feeling this pain right now. Yes. It's like the runner of the marathon or the person who's trying to be the right you know, athlete or whatever you're trying to do there. The reason you're in that fire in the moment is because Damn, what you're trying to do with it matters for you. I love that man that is so profound. That is so awesome. So let's let's then back that up a little bit. So say it's someone that is that is trying to go through and this is a talk a little bit about this and CEO for life. How do people find that aspiration, though? So how do you how do you bring clarity, that aspiration? How do you help your clients and the people that work with you get her clarity on that aspiration? So they can then fight those pain points?
David Brier 22:08
Are you how do you find the aspiration for yourself or for another?
Robert Barber 22:12
So I mean, you because I run into my client, you know, I have clients that run the gamut of age or career or where they're at. And we spend probably the first like, five hours together just trying to get clarity around what the hell they want. Right? So, you know, how do you help people find that?
David Brier 22:31
I go, I go, I go for the laser. I go for the gut. And I go, I go for the guy they get I know, I think enormous, enormous surprise. There's no risk. So I think is I asked questions like this? What the fuck do you really give a shit about? I mean, like, What the fuck do you really? Like really give a shit about I don't ask. I don't ask somebody
Robert Barber 23:06
to come out. You got to come up with something if you're asked that.
David Brier 23:11
Yeah, it was like, wow, I kind of like Bob. No, no, no, no. What the fuck? Really? Like, really? Like, what would you give your life up for?
Robert Barber 23:21
Ooh, hmm. I bet that questions not asked enough. Oh, no. So how does this how does this apply? How do you then apply that from a branding standpoint? I mean, I know we've already talked about that you got to care about what other people want first and understand that before you you get to your brand and your message. So now I've already got an understanding in our say, you and I we have we built a relationship. We have a rapport, I understand where you're at, you know, we had some good conversation, those kind of thing. There's a level of trust between us. So how would I then begin to communicate what I'm about? What do you what do you suggest? In you know, beyond authenticity and empathy, you know, how do you how do you begin to communicate your brand and what you're about?
David Brier 24:11
You've got, you've got to be mature. You got it involves a bit of maturity. And that maturity involves what one? Being willing to walk away. Hmm. You can't be so freakin hungry that it's like, they've got to recognize my importance. They got to recognize my value. No, no, they don't have to do shit. They're not obligated to you to do anything. Yeah, you got to just you got to just come to grips with that. Secondly, you got to look at are you there to pitch so for you to get something out of it? Are you there to pitch to actually provide them with something valuable? That distinction right there. If you don't have that crystal clear in your in your head? You're freaking toast. Okay, you're not only toast, you're soggy toast. That's kind of getting a little moldy. Right? The edges. I mean, you know, I mean, that's the thing. Am I here? You know, it's like funny, I find it funny. Occasionally some people say, Well, David, you're like, you're, you're really, really solid. It's hard. I said, bullshit. I'm just passionate, I give a shit. I want to ask the tough questions. So, so, um, you know, I mean, that's the basic thing is that is like, am I here? Like, I don't have any doubt about the value that I bring to the conversation or the doubt that I the value I bring to people's lives. I've seen it enough. Life has slapped me in the face enough to go, Hey, dude, are you paying attention? Do you see the what just happened? You know, and I pride myself in being attentive and not you know, not being not being asleep at the wheel. But even for that, you know, sometimes you really got to pay attention to say, Wow, I just changed someone's life. Yeah, just changed someone's life, this interaction. It's not like I just change No, I changed. Someone's like recognition, a change occurred. We talked. And if you do that, if you talk and interact with others, and the outcome moves more routinely, a transformation is occurring for the other people that you're interacting with. Something's happening their own that and if something isn't happening their own that too, only by ownership, can you evolve? You can't go oh, well, it's because of them. They weren't ready bullshit. your lazy ass. I mean, that's bullshit. Lazy, Lazy is thinking, Oh, is them bullshit. It's never them. And what I mean by that is, yeah, you might run into somebody. I we all do. I run into people who are like, they're not ready for David Brier yet. Okay. It's on me to be a to paying attention enough to recognize that it's not on them. It's on me. If I have that level of ownership. I'm good. They're good. Yeah. I mean, there was someone I mean, as a perfect case in point, there was someone that I was talking to, who was expressed some interest in doing, doing the masterclass that I offer, let people out because I am as protective of the group that I am forming as I am or anything else. And so I'm going I'm talking this person, and I'm asking questions, because I'm like, I want to get a beat. Is this person a doer? Are they hoper? There's hoping it's like, don't look to me for yours. I'm not gonna be a silver bullet. I'm not going to be your secret sauce. You're going to be your secret sauce. I'm only here to give. I tell people. I'm only here to give you back you. That's my job. I'm here to give you back you. And with you present enough, you can create a killer brand. It's that simple. So the thing is, is I mean, I've talked to tuck this guy talk this guy. And he goes, he's like, any, like, no matter what I would say it's like, yeah, but yeah, but did it it? Uh, and, and my business partner, we were on a call together. We get on the call. He goes, Did you want me to follow up with him? I said absolutely. Absolutely not. Yeah. And I let this guy know, I said, you know, I sent them a text. I said, you know, I've looked it over. And I don't feel at the pro that that the program is a good fit for you. And and and I did it that that was my way basically to get the hell out of here. And his response, which is what cracked me up to showed how much of a he couldn't even understand something as simple as that. He goes, thank you for being honest and telling me that your program would not be successful with me? Or was it or wasn't? Or you're
probably not his?
I didn't say I didn't Yeah, I didn't I didn't say that I've been I'm being honest that it's not going to be successful. No, I bottom line is is your your your your poison to yourself, your life, everyone. I already know the quality of your relationships based on what I just the conversations I've had. I know the quality of your relationships with your employees, with your family members. I know how unhealthy you are physically. I know all of that. I can extrapolate that just from the discussions we had. That's just giving me a bead on where you're at. It's not a goodness or badness or it's not a rightness or wrongness it's simply you know what? You're kind of toxic man. You're like you're you're you make decaf looking caffeinated. That's how freakin toxic you are.
Robert Barber 29:56
Yeah, just to kind of wrap the wrap through that a little bit. And so what I heard and what I learned Learn from you just then was one is, you know, as I'm putting my brand out into the world, if I've take inventory throughout the day or over a week or whatever, is it transformed formational for people, right? Am I having some sort of impact that's transforming lives. And that is, I'm looking over my life and looking over what I'm doing. And I love that said, super helpful for anyone listening. Write that down, y'all. The other thing is, in I talk about this in the book, too, which is, you got to be able to say no, you got to learn to love No. And being able to say no, is is critical. In in what you brought to me is the protective word in that is so great that you know, you care enough about what your brand is, and what it means to the people. You're transforming, that you're willing to say no and be productive of that. And I think people probably early on, especially you're just willing to sell to anybody that you possibly can. And that's not the right way to go. Right, right. Yeah, that's super good. That's super good. Well, let's and we're just about at 30 minutes and so I kind of like to wrap these things up David with really pressing upon the people's hearts. You know, what is on your heart right now? What are you thinking about? What are you contemplating that you may want to share with people today? You know, what's on your heart? What are you contemplating about what are you percolating on that you could share with some insights for anybody listening.
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