Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Rory Vaden on How to Find Your Uniqueness and Exploit It in the Service of Others EP 248

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

Today I am joined on the Pasion Struck podcast by author, award-winning speaker, and personal branding expert Rory Vaden, who reveals the hidden power of finding our uniqueness and exploiting it in the service of others. Rory is the NY Times bestselling author of "Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success." What We Discuss About How to Find Your Uniqueness The most successful people in the world realize that the meaning of their lives is about addressing the problem they solve in the service of other people. It's about service. It's not self-centered. It's others-centered. But how do you create and become the person who serves the person you once were? What are the keys to building a life-changing personal brand? How do you find your uniqueness? What do your calendar and your pocketbook tell you about your values? Where do you start on your journey? Rory Vaden tackles this and so much more. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/rory-vaden-how-to-find-your-uniqueness/  Brought to you by Policygenius and Indeed. --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Prefer to watch this interview:  https://youtu.be/G7LifRv2B2I  --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Want to hear my best interviews from 2022? Check out episode 233 on intentional greatness and episode 234 on intentional behavior change. ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/ 

Coming up next on the passion struck podcast. It is understanding what personal branding is and what it is not. Personal branding is about the problem you solve in the service of other people. It's about service. It's not self centered. It's others centered, right? It's not self actualization. You know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs talks about self actualization. I think Maslow missed it. I think Maslow was run wrong short. It's good to become all that you're meant to be, but there's a level beyond that, which is becoming everything you can be in the service of others. That is a level of power and a depth of fire and passion that is non-extinguishable. Welcome to PassionStruck. Hi, I'm your host,

John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews

the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passion struck. Hello everyone, and welcome back to episode 248 of Passion Struck. Recently ranked by Interview Valet as the third best podcast for mindset and the fourth best for conversation. And thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly.

Well listen and learn how to live better, be better and impact the world. And if you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. Or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member. We now have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organize into convenient topics that give any new listener a great way to get acquainted to everything we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or PassionStruct.com, slash starter packs to get started. And in case you missed my episodes from last week, they featured Dr. Ethan Cross, who's

a psychologist at the University of Michigan, and one of the leading experts on the conversations that we have with ourselves, and the best-selling author of the book, Chatter. I also had on Dr. Nita Hushan, and we discuss her brand new book, which releases today, actually, called Backed Sucked. Now what? And thank you so much for your continued ratings and reviews. They go such a long way in helping us improve the popularity of the show, but more importantly, bringing more and more members into this passion-star community, where we can give them meaning, connection, inspiration, and hope. Now let's discuss today's episode,

the most successful people in the world know that achieving success and anything is the result of doing the right thing all the time, whether we feel like it or not. They realize that the meaning for their lives is about addressing the problem that only they can solve in the service of others. It's about service, it's not self-centered, it's other-centered, and that means learning how to get ourselves to do the things we know we should be doing, but we don't feel like doing.

Things like overcoming procrastination, taking action, and developing the self-discipline that's needed to become a person of character. But how do you become the person who serves the person you once were? What are the keys to building a life-changing personal brand? How do you find your uniqueness? What does your calendar and your pocketbook tell you about your values? And where do you start along this journey? Our guest today, Rory Vaden, tackles this and so much more.

And I'm so honored to have Rory a personal friend of mine on the show today. Rory is the co-founder of the Brand Builders Group and the world leading expert on the psychology of leadership and influence. Rory's first book, Take the Stairs, is a number one Wall Street Journal, number one USA today, number one Amazon, and number two New York Times best selling book that has been translated into 11 languages. Where is TEDx talk on how to multiply time has been viewed well over 3 million times. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your

journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. I am absolutely ecstatic to welcome Rory Vaden to the Passion Start podcast. Welcome, Rory. John, it's good to be with you, my friend. I appreciate your support over the years and so proud of what you're doing in this show and all the people you're helping. So it's an honor to be here. Well, thank you for that. And I try to give the audience an intro to the gas. And I'd like to use this question. We all have moments that define who we are. What is a moment that define who you are?

Wow, I mean, I have so many of them, like I could talk for an hour. God, I could just give you like five. I tell you the probably the one that most comes immediately to mind is that When I was like 20 years old I remember walking through the airport and seeing a book on the shelf at the airport bookstore And it said New York Times bestseller. And I remember thinking to myself, man, how does that happen? What does it take? How could that be possible? And I remember taking the book off the shelf,

holding my hand on the cover, closing my eyes, and just thinking about one day having a book in the airport with my name on it with New York Times bestseller. And in that moment, John, I might as well have said I was going to be LeBron James or I was going to become president of the United States. It could not have been a more seemingly distant and unrealistic goal than from where I was. I had no idea. I didn't know any of the authors. I had never written a book.

I didn't know anything about it. And part of that was the start of a journey of where I ended up entering a contest called the World Championship of Public Speaking. I came in second in the world when I was 23 years old. That led me to meet a gentleman named Zig Ziglar. Zig Ziglar became a personal mentor of mine for a couple of years. I had a friend in college. We started a company together.

He knew a woman named AJ, who I was my business partner. And then I ended up, we started dating and her and I got married. And we grew this company and I started speaking. And then when I was 29 years old, my first book came out, take the stairs. And it hit number one on the Wall Street Journal, bestseller list and number two on the New York times. And we ended up selling that business that we were in. But that moment of having that thought and then all the work that went in over like the next nine years to make it a reality was a really defining moment because what we

do at Brandbuilders Group now is we help mission driven messengers build and monetize their personal brand, right? So we help people reach more people, make more impact, and we actually just had our 10th client that we've helped hit the New York Times. We just had our 4th client have a TED Talk O viral with over a million views. We've had three clients do over seven figures in revenue within the first three years.

And part of why I say this is a defining moment is because for you listening, this journey has led us to one of the most powerful epiphanies and one of the strongest realizations, which is that we now help people find their uniqueness. We help experts figure out how to become more well known and we help them figure out what they can do that nobody else can do or what they can do as good as anyone else in the world. And what we know now that we didn't know four years ago is that you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. You're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you

once were. And that story of me setting that goal and then it coming true is what led to what we do now. Our clients are people now, of course, like Lewis House and Tom and Lisa Bill you and Eric Thomas and John Gordon and Pierre Diamandis and Amy Porter field. We have these are really amazing clients and it's really fun to work with those guys. Ed my let as another client of ours. We helped Ed just pre sell 117,000 copies of his book earlier this year. But most of our clients are not at that celebrity level, like 5% of our clients are. Most of them are beginner or intermediate in their journey. And part of why we're having so much success is because we're teaching people

to do what we have actually done. And part of what we do is we help people figure out what their personal brand should be about. And the secret that we've realized is that for every person we're working with, you're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. And most people struggle to find what their personal brand should be about.

And we have figured out that is really the key. And it's what we have done, and it is now what we have taught lots of people to do, and it's what I would encourage anybody who's thinking about building a personal brand. That's the shortest path to striking your passion, so to speak. Well, maybe the best follow-on question to that is,

how do you uniquely position your personal brand in the market using something that you call the brand DNA helix? Yeah, well, I think the best piece of personal branding advice that I'd ever received. So this one is not a rory vayton quote, okay, this is one I heard from somebody else. I heard this from a gentleman named Larry Wingett. I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I was like, oh my gosh, that's brilliant. Like that is what it is. But Larry wasn't in the business of teaching people how to do that. He just made that observation. And so when we started Brandbuilders Group, we were like, we're going to create a process to help people find their uniqueness. And so we've now worked with about just shy of a thousand clients.

And so we've taken a thousand people through this process and what we realized is that there's basically six main questions to help somebody find their uniqueness and we call this the brand DNA helix because it's about finding your uncopyable difference. It's about finding the thing that only you can do. It's really targeting it on what is your uniqueness and the questions work in pairs like chromosomes, right? So the first two questions go together. And I'll start with the first question, which is the hardest question of all, it's the most important question. It's the question that everyone needs to answer and almost nobody does and almost nobody can. And this is the genesis of where you build a personal brand and really a life of purpose in general. And it is the genesis of where you build a personal brand and really a life of purpose in general. And it is so simple. It's easy to overlook. And it is just

being able to answer this question, what problem do you solve? And the trick is you have to say it in one word, what problem do you solve in one word? If you can't clearly articulate what problem you solve in one word, there is no way your audience or your prospects ever will be able to either. And the number one reason why personal brands fail is because they're talking about too many things to too many different audiences.

On too many different platforms, they have too many different products they're selling, too many different revenue streams on too many different platforms, they have too many different products, they're selling too many different revenue streams. And when you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. But when you can pinpoint and isolate and you can look and say, I'm gonna dedicate my life to solving

and exploring this problem for people, it changes everything. Because people, what they really pay money for is solutions to problems. When we think of money, we tend to think of like, oh, will people buy nice cars or buy a nice home or they go on vacation. But in reality, especially at a recession or anything like that, people don't spend money on those things unless they have it. But if your kid gets sick, they're going to find the money.

If you have a flat tire, you're going to find the money to fix it. If your water heater breaks, you find the money. People always have money to solve problems. And so being a great marketer is about learning how to be an ambassador of the problem. You have to celebrate the problem. You have to promote the problem. You have to talk about the problem, analyze the problem, diagnose the problem, quantify the problem. And if you do that, then people will buy from you. But if you don't know what the problem is, if you can't clearly articulate what it is, then you can't do that, which means you're just spouting off a bunch of random facts and information that are not connected to any central point,

which means you're just noise and you sound like noise and get swallowed by the noise as part of the noise of the whole world. And in order to break through the wall, we call it she hands wall because there's two groups of people in the world, there's the unknown or the people dealing with obscurity. And then there are those who are known,

they have no deriady. And then there are those who are known, they have notoriety. And in between is this huge invisible wall, we call it she hands wall. And what most of the people who are struggling with obscurity do is they look at all the people in notoriety. And they say, I want to do those things for Tony Robbins talks about money and health and relationships. And your date with destiny and Oprah has magazines and TV shows and whatever the rock has, Tequila and he's an actor and he's a wrestler and they go, oh, I wanna do all these things,

but what happens is they bounce off the wall because if you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. And the key to breaking through the wall is to find your uniqueness, to pinpoint with laser-like accuracy that one problem that you can explore and solve for the world, and that's how you break through the wall. And then once you break

through the wall, you can expand and you can do more stuff. But that's the genesis is what problem do you solve in one word, and most people can't answer it. Well, I have to tell you, when I went on this podcasting journey, I originally started the podcast to test out ideas for a book that I had written because the agents I was talking to were telling me, well, how do you know it's going to resonate or not resonate? So they said you should go out and public speak about it, but it was COVID and I didn't have that opportunity. So I started talking about it, and you have a podcast yourself,

but it's kind of difficult at first doing it. I listened to my old episodes from the beginning, and I cringe, but I think the biggest change that I made that really has propelled the growth of the podcast is I had people who, you mentioned a couple of them, Tom Bilyu, Lewis Hous, who I really love their podcasts and they were two who really got me interested

in doing this. But what I realized is I am not Tom, or Jay Shetty, or Lewis, I'm John Miles. And so I need to be me. And the more authentic I have found I am, the more vulnerable I am, it seems like the more people are tuning in. So I think that's a good point that you just brought up. It's really challenging and it's hard to do it for ourselves because we're so close

to it. So that's the first question. The second question is, what am I passionate about? And the passion question is really important. It's like, it is not only what makes you happy and fires you up, but what pisses you off? What breaks your heart? What makes you sad? What is a problem that you look at in the world and you say,

I'm not okay with that. I'm not comfortable with that. I don't accept that. I'm not willing to live a life walking around knowing that other people are struggling with a problem that I have the power and the ability to solve. And it's not just a branding conversation. It's not just a business conversation. This is a purpose conversation. Mother Teresa dedicated her life to eradicating poverty. Martin Luther King, Jr., he dedicated his life to ridding the world of inequality. Now, the biggest personal brands in the world, Dave Ramsey has company

worth hundreds of millions of dollars, thousands of employees. Dave lives down the street. I've known Dave for 15 years, right? He lives here in Nashville. Dave has spent 30 years helping people get rid of debt. Bernay Brown became one of the most powerful women, most influential women in the world by dedicating her life, not to say, oh, I want to be a podcaster or a speaker or get a Netflix special, although those things have happened, she was a researcher studying shame. You cannot talk about shame without talking about Brene Brown. And it wasn't a strategy for her. It was a mission. And that's why we say we serve mission driven messengers at Brandbuilders group because it's going, what hill would I die on? What I dedicate my life to? And when we get somebody clear on that

and we can pinpoint a problem and it's one they're passionate about, you typically see this light come on in them that really transforms their business and can transform the growth of their platform in a way that they've never experienced. Yeah, I think that's so powerful. And one of the other powerful things I heard you say about 18 months ago when you were on Lewis's podcast is that people don't buy information.

They buy the application of that information. And I think you're so right about that statement. And I was hoping you could just talk about it and expand upon that. Yeah, that's exactly right. So our entire content strategy, right? Our entire content strategy is that we teach everything we know for free. But in small bite size chunks and in all random order, like if you go follow my Instagram profile or if you go to Rory Vaden blog.com, like you literally like my blog. I think you could contend there's information on there that is as valuable as an MBA like legitimately. Now the thing is I teach him in all seven minute videos and in all random order. But people in our podcast, right? To like our podcast is we interview all of our

clients, right? So we've had all these people, Amy, Porter, Vield and Lewis and etc. Like we have amazing people. We've also had a lot of our friends like Les Brown and Gretchen Rubin and like all of these people and the interviews on our show are not just what these people normally talk about. It's not what's in their books. It's them telling the stories of how they built their personal brand and how they built their following and how they built their speaking career and how they built their social media and like things they don't talk about anywhere else because that's our lens, right? Like the problem we solve in the world is obscurity. And so we are helping people get clarity and build trust about who they are with the marketplace.

And so that's what we're interviewing. But anyways, we give away so much content for free. It's an insane amount. And people always struggle because they go, well, Rory, if I give away everything I know for free, why would anybody pay me? And that's the wrong thing to be worried about because people don't pay for information. People pay for information, people pay for organization and application. They're not really paying to know what you know. They're

paying to apply what you know to their life. So I think this is a thing that course creators and people need to understand. It's not just, oh, I have knowledge that I can sell. It's that I have to package my knowledge in a way that makes it consumable for people that they can learn it, process it, apply it and get a result from it in their own life as quick as possible for as cheap as possible. At least that's what we try to do, right? Like we try to make everything we do as affordable as humanly possible so that we can help the most number of people. You just don't have to be afraid of it. And this is what's interesting to me too, John,

is people sometimes go, well, Roy, what if they don't buy or how do I make any money? And that's where I say, well, first of all, I thought you got into this because you wanted to make impact, right? Mission driven messengers, we like money, we're good at making money. One of my wife's spiritual gifts is making money.

Like we are good at making money. We make people out of money. We know how to make money. This brand-news group is our fifth multi-million dollar business that we've started and likely to be our second eight-figure business here with the next couple of years. So there is something to be said about making money, but mission driven messengers, making money

is subservient to impact. It's not just about making money. It's about making a difference. It's about doing something that matters. It's about impacting people's lives. And here's what blows my mind is people go, well, gosh, I would love to make an impact, but I might not make anybody doing it. And you go, well, who cares?

You don't have to make money to make an impact, but I might not make anybody doing it. And you go, well, who cares? You don't have to make money to make an impact. You can start a podcast. You can do social, you can do YouTube videos. You can post on Instagram or TikTok or what LinkedIn, you can write blogs. You can just change lives. No one is stopping you from changing lives. You can go out and change lives right away. And people create this barrier that's not really there. Because if you just did that, if you just threw yourself relentlessly

into serving people and teaching what you know for free, what would happen is people would flood to you. They would flock to you to say, wow, what you shared was so powerful. Can you help me apply this in my life? And that's what they are willing to pay money for. It's a fair financial exchange because you're going to take time and to create resources and tools to help them do it. But it's not like they're really paying you for their knowledge or the information. They're paying for application and whether they pay you or they don't, no one is stopping you from changing the world except you.

All of us are one button push away from being able to teach and inspire and educate and motivate and help and serve the people around us. There is simply no excuse. As we talked about before, we started today. this whole podcast is about how to create an intentional life. I believe a lot of that has to do with the culmination of our daily choices in determining our long-term tsunami of greatness. I wanted to ask you with that as a lens. What is the foundation for someone who's building this brand or wants to achieve greatness for translating our highest ambitions into intentional, hyper-focused effort. I think it is understanding what personal branding is and what it is not. So when people hear personal branding, they think, oh, you're

talking about social media or you're talking about websites or you're talking about graphics or logos or colors, right? That's what people think of. That is not what we think of when we think of personal branding. Personal branding is simply the digitization of your reputation. It's the digitization of your reputation. So you have to understand like all of those things are tactics and tools that play a part of it. But what we're really doing here is a much bigger conversation than like followers and likes

and color palettes and websites and technology gadgets and things. This is about reputation. It's about becoming well known, not being famous, but becoming trusted, becoming well known, becoming credible, respected. Someone who is an advisor that people look to for answers to help them in their life and in their business. If you can do that, then there's a huge financial opportunity.

But the irony, the greatest irony of all about personal branding is that personal branding is not about you. It's not about how many followers you get and how much money you make and like how much reach you have and like all of these things like what TV shows your honor, who you know, it's none of that personal branding is about the problem you solve in the service of other people. It's about service. It's not self centered. It's others centered. It's not self actualization. What Maslow's hierarchy of needs talks about self actualization. I think Maslow missed it. I think Maslow was run, run short. It's good to become all that you're meant to be, but there's a level beyond that, which is becoming everything you can be in the service of others. That is a level of power and a depth of fire and passion that is non-extinguishable. It never runs out. It creates meaning for our lives.

Our lives have meaning in the context of how we serve and help and support other people. So it's not so much about like, who am I? It's, who can I help? How can I serve? People run around asking the wrong question. They say, what is my purpose? How do I find my purpose? It's totally self-centered. A better question is to say, who can I serve?

Who can I help? Who can I support? What do I have that's valuable to another person if you approach things that way you will find purpose you will find passion You will find meaning and you will find an audience and you'll find influence and you'll find impact and you'll find income and Profit and revenue because you're showing up and profit and revenue because you're showing up for the world in a way that is not saying, look at me, here I am, I'm so great. You're showing up for the world in a way that says, how can I help you? What do you need? Here's what I have to offer. And when you do that, people come, they flock, they're starving for it. If you can articulate it

clearly, and if you can transform your personal character to be focused on service rather than selfishness. Well, I think you did a tremendous job of just articulating what exactly it means to live your life passion struck. So I'm so glad you brought that up because that is really the backdrop for this whole show is to be better, live better, but more importantly impact others through the service that you're giving them. I'm loved the way that you answered that. I once heard a sermon by Terry Moore, who was my pastor when we were in Moore'sville, North Carolina. And he said during this message that if you want to know what a person values, just look at their calendar and their checkbook. Why is this the case? Because I know that this is something that's in your book as well. And how do we use our calendar and our checkbook to improve the areas of our life or were deficient?

Yeah, as now you're talking about my first book, Take the Stairs, which was like how I built my career years ago, but it is how we spend our time and our money is really the scoreboard of what matters most to us in our life. It is the signal of what we believe in and what we care about and what matters to us. So that is why that works. That's understanding that what we say is important isn't what's actually important. It's what we do that's important. It's who we are that is important.

And you can't build a great personal brand without first building a strong personal character. One of the things that my pastor shared with me is he said that your influence will never grow wider than your character runs deep. Your influence will never grow wider than your character runs deep. And so who you are offstage, who you are when the mic is off, who you are when the camera is off, matters more than who you are when the camera is on. And that's unfortunate because it's unfortunate that we live in a world where not always is the person on camera, the same or onstage, the same as the person who is off camera and off stage. They're living a performance, which is fakeness. It's incongruency. It's in authenticity.

It's inaccuracy. And it's not only like misleading, but it's very discouraging and it's very draining. It's not a life giving way to live. And so it's like, we have to make sure and focus first on influencing ourselves before influencing other people and making sure I'm doing the things in my life that keep me in a healthy frame of mind and a healthy position. The people around me the most, I'm taking care of those people first

and then emanating out from there. And I think there's some really positive and beautiful things about like social media and there's also some really negative ones and one of the negative ones is I think a lot of people are Pretending so to speak because what you see on their profile isn't an accurate reflection of who they are or What the condition of their heart is? I think that's a real shame because they're living in a way Feeling like they have to pretend to be something they're not in order to get approval when in reality, if they

would lean into who they are and sharing what they're struggling with and more importantly, becoming the person they need to be to overcome some of those challenges, then it would free them up. They would live so free and they would be able to go on a journey with people that is super duper powerful. And you don't need to pretend that your most powerfully position to serve the person you once were. So going through challenges and going through struggles is in that very moment, preparing you for the person you're supposed to be one day for somebody else. So there's no shame in that. There's nothing to hide there. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's not that we're excited about pain, like nobody likes to deal with it, but it's to realize that even sometimes the pain we're going through in our life, it doesn't even have anything to do with us. My belief is it has to do with God shaping us and preparing us.

And there's a beautiful biblical term, which is sanctification, which is this gradual cleansing, this gradual forming, this gradual strengthening of strengthening me and making me into the person that I need to become so that I'm more well suited to help somebody else. And I just think as people lean into that more, they'll not only have more money and not only have more impact, they'll have more happiness, they'll have more peace, they'll have more purpose. It's all right there available by just orienting your entire personal brand around service. orienting your entire personal brand around service. Well, I'm glad you brought up the whole social media aspect. Today, my episode that I released was with Robin Sharma, who I'm sure you know who that is. And we were talking about the power of

focus, which I know is something that you talk about as well, but when we were discussing it, we were talking about the power of focus and the impact of distraction. And he said something that I thought was really powerful. He said, we have a choice. We can change the world or we can plan our phones and we can't do both. And what I wanted to ask you is why is an addiction to distraction the death of your creative productivity? Well, I think that the neuroscience of the human brain is working against us in many

ways. First of all, the human brain is not designed for success. The human brain is designed for survival. Survival is about doing what is comfortable and safe and predictable. Success is about doing what is uncomfortable and safe and predictable. Success is about doing what is uncomfortable and hard and risky. But even in the neuroscience that under brain scan, the human brain loves to complete things. So anytime you complete an item, the brain releases the chemical dopamine, which is the pleasure-steeking drug or the, you feel pleasure. So if you cross something

off your to-do list or you delete an item in your inbox, you get a little bump of dopamine, which is why people are addicted to completing a high volume of insignificant or trivial tasks. But my TED Talk that went viral, I had a TED Talk that got millions of millions of you, like four millions of views, which is what my second book was based around is how to multiply time. And we talk about how multipliers know that success isn't related to the volume of tasks we complete, but to the significance of them in terms of what's the impact of those tasks on tomorrow and the next day and the next day.

So we are literally addicted in some ways through no fault of our own because the brain is just responding to completing things. And so we're completing trivial things, it makes us feel good. This is why if you complete something that's not on your to-do list, sometimes you add it to your to-do list

just so you could cross it off, so that you can feel good. But maturing to becoming a multiplier and becoming a top one percent or ultra-performer, a wealthy person is about realizing sometimes a great day is when I do one or two really important things, even though there's a hundred little things that I chose not to do, which is what we call procrastinating on purpose, which is the title of my second book, procrastinating on purpose.

I think people become addicted to distraction part because of some of those things. I think distraction is all often a state of mindlessness. It's just like, okay, what's next on the Netflix, what's next video on YouTube, what's scrolling. It's just, it's like mindlessness and creativity is about mindfulness. It's about going, how can I express this emotion or solution in a better way? I think it is those things. And if anybody is listening, John, and they go, man, I really want to do this. I think it is those things. And if anybody is listening, John, and they go, man, I really want to do this. I really feel a calling in my life to serve somebody else. And I really want to help other people. If they go to free call.roivatin.com,

we they can do the first call for free with one of our strategists. And we can just kind of talk it out and help them figure out what are the distractions? What is your uniqueness? What is your vision? And then we can help you figure out if we might be a good partner to help you again, free call dot roary vaiden dot com. But like the only reason we don't serve other people is because we're scared and we only feel scared when we're thinking about ourselves. How am I going to look? Am I going to be people going to think I'm stupid? and you know, like I don't know how to use the technology, but there is no fear when the mission to serve is clear. There is no fear when going to help somebody. If there's a car turned over on the side of the road and there's a fire and someone needs

help, when you go running over to them, you're not thinking about how does my hair look or is my outfit cute because you're going to help somebody. And if you're feeling fear, it's because you're self centered, not selfish, but self centered. You're thinking about yourself and what are people going to think? And if you just let that go and you just lean into service and say, I'm going to teach people what I know, I'm going to offer what I have. I'm going to try to be useful.

I'm going to make myself available to make other people's lives better. Then there is no fear. And there is somebody out there right now who is begging and pleading and searching and potentially on their hands and knees, praying to God for answers to questions that you know, like the back of your hand, because you have already been there and you have been through it. So what challenge have you conquered, what obstacle have you overcome, what setback have you survived? That is what your personal brand is about.

You're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. Okay. serve the person you once were. Okay, and then a final question for you would be, I know you like to do visualizations and it's important to have faith in the future. How do you visualize what you want your life to look like in the future? And I know from Brandbuilder's Group, there's a five year exercise

where you kind of write your resume. I was hoping we might end on this because I think it's a five year exercise where you kind of write your resume. I was hoping we might end on this because I think it's a pretty powerful exercise that a listener can do. Yeah, well, I don't have a ton of time. I just every night I fall asleep thinking about a future scene that I want to live and I try to picture something that I can v visualize, something that a is auditory that I could hear, s that I can smell and tea that I can touch. So we call that making a vast vision.

And I just try to picture a future in a scene, a moment in time that I want to live. It's that bookstore. It's going, I'm honestly thinking about walking into this bookstore in the future and seeing a book with my name on it in New York Times best seller. And I will live that scene one thousand times in my mind. And then one day it will come true in real life. Okay, well, Rory, if the audience wants to learn more about you, you gave a way for them to contact a brand builders. What's a great way for them to do that? Yeah, just roryvadenblog.com. If you want to check out more of my training,

but if you really are like, I think there's something here, I would just say go to freecall.roryvaden.com. And let us talk to you. We want to get to meet you, we want to hear your dreams, and then we'll just kind of go from there. Well, Rory, thank you so much for joining us today

and your message is always so inspirational. So it was true honor to have you on. With my pleasure, John. Thank you so much, my friend. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Rory, and I wanted to thank Rory for the honor and privilege of coming here on the PassionStark podcast. Links to all things Rory will be in the show notes at PassionStark.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature on the show. All the proceeds go to making the show free for our listeners. Videos are on YouTube at John R. Miles or on our new Clips channel at PassionStruckClips.

Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at PassionStruck.com slash deals. I'm on LinkedIn and you can also find me on Twitter and Instagram at John R. Miles. You're about to hear a preview of the Passionstruck podcast interview with Captain Sandy, who is a super yacht captain and star of bravos below deck Mediterranean. We discuss her debut book, Be the Calm, or Be the Storm, Leadership Lessons from a Woman at the Helm, where she discusses the leadership skills and critical thinking inherent in being a captain that can empower anyone that can help anyone navigate their way to a successful life based on the leadership

lessons that she's cleaned from her resourceful and resilient life. First and foremost, you have to be aware that you actually have a choice. So many people are in autopilot in their lives and they keep repeating the same behavior and the same results happen. Different situations, different content, but the same. Unless you're aware, how do you create that awareness? Oh my gosh, I actually have a choice in this situation. So many people like myself were surrounded by fear. We make choices out of fear. That is what I had to learn not to do is to choose faith over fear that if I do the next right thing and choose that I had the power to choose that choice I'm okay with the consequences.

The fee for the show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something motivational or useful. If you know someone who is looking to take that next step and how to build personal brand, then today's episode is definitely the one for them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is when you share the show with family or friends. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And until next time, live life, passion's rock.

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